Bob

True. But if there’s anything to take away from all of this is that those prices aren’t natural, god-given or unavoidable. It’s probably a good idea for op to shop around - wound care, anesthesia and antibiotics shouldn’t be $2000 even in the US.

I’m not the person you are replying to, but I do wonder what “third world countries” you are thinking of when you hear “Western Europe”?

As someone who has lived in both the US and Germany (one of those “third world countries” with significantly lower health care cost, for both humans and animals) and who has seen the benefits and drawbacks of both countries - it’s completely delusional if you actually believe that someone who is supposedly living paycheck to paycheck is getting better health care in the US. The German system certainly has its flaws, but it beats the US in just about every sensible metric (accessibility, cost, life expectancy, infant mortality etc.), usually quite significantly so. The US does a solid number of things better than other countries, entrepreneurship and innovation for example, but health care absolutely isn’t among those things.

What’s new to me (I had no exposure to the veterinary health care system during my time in the US) is that the inflated fantasy prices aren’t limited to humans only, but extend to pets as well. Anesthesia and extensive wound care, antibiotics, aftercare etc. are pretty standard therapies and they should cost little over a tenth of what you were quoted for your typical house cat.

You honestly might want to shop around, because even within the US, those rates are almost certainly inflated.

I don’t think the downvotes are warranted. That is an exorbitant amount for the planned vet procedure OP describes.

Vet rates in Germany, for example, are regulated and wound care under anesthesia is pretty standard treatment. Even with multiple, complicated wounds, a round of antibiotics, extensive after care, this would be a three digit bill - while likely more than 200€, it would still be far closer to that number than OP’s tenfold quote…

Heck, even surgery for a complicated fracture wouldn’t come close to the 2000€ mark and can often stay below 1000€.

We are all aware that the US healthcare system works with ridiculously inflated fantasy prices, but that this extends to veterinary care is news to me.

It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is democracy.

I’m able to see any news that would be relevant as quickly as any other social media,

That’s not what I use Reddit for and that’s sadly the only Reddit (and other social media) thing today, that Lemmy mimics successfully.

I’m using Reddit mostly for the niche and special interest communities. For specific tech advice and troubleshooting. For all the stuff that once used to be home on newsgroups and bulletin boards and can now only be found in subreddits and, even worse, Discord communities.

And a lot of these smaller tech communities were super motivated to move to Lemmy, but Lemmy’s complete inability to surface anything but the most popular posts in the most popular communities (there’s still no equivalent for multireddits and there was no weighted popularity until 0.19) rapidly killed and suffocated virtually all of them.

That’s the reason why you can type “obscure technical problem Reddit” into Google and almost always get a relevant answer, while that will likely never be the case for Lemmy.

I can discuss things in communities that feel welcoming to me as a queer socialist that I could hardly find on Reddit.

I’m not saying Lemmy doesn’t have good communities, it certainly does, but once you go beyond news, politics and memes there’s neither enough content nor enough users to keep anything else alive.

an x64 laptop that can run anything

That used to be true, but simply is no longer the case. Commercial streaming services are heavily restricting how and what you can output on your x64 PC.
You’re not only getting far better platform and format compatibility on your cheap Google TV or Fire TV stick, you’re also getting the far better apps and overall user experience.

That’s also nothing stopping you from installing Firefox on these devices or pairing a mouse with them, if you desperately need “browser plugins” and an less sofa compatible input device for whatever you’re doing in your living room.

Lemmy is very much a viable alternative

Oh, how I wish that were true. Alas, stats keep showing that Lemmy is not continuing to grow, on the contrary. There is close to zero activity in anything but the most main stream communities and Lemmy is only now making very, very slow and tentative steps to actually surface more niche communities after effectively burying and suffocating them in every release up to and including the current stable.

That’s a clunky, ugly and pricey solution that’s not suitable for 99% of all people.

Just get a cheap Google TV or Fire TV stick (starts at $20 not $200), install SmartTube and you not only will get a remote control come with it, you can control it with your TV’s remote via HDMI-CEC. You can also install any other official or personal streaming solution you like with full features like HDR etc.

Given that this post is about YouTube on PlayStation the solution there is … don’t watch YouTube on PlayStation.

There’s no uBlock for PlayStation as far as I know. I don’t think there is a solution other than “subscribe to premium” or “don’t watch YouTube on your console”.

Yeah, until the printer engineers took over from the sewing machine engineers in around 2020. Even Brother is evil now, rolling out firmware updates that render third party toner useless or do even more evil shenanigans via firmware:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

I don’t think there’s a good brand left these days, Brother was the last bastion of “not shitty” and now they, too, were enshittified.

Sadly, they are also evil now. Latest firmware (~2020) outright blocks third party cartridges or, even more evil, accepts them and then secretly and intentionally, prints like crap:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

Everything until ~2019 is awesome, though. Just disable firmware updates.

Here too, just don’t update your firmware (and turn off auto-updates). Brother went evil around 2020, too.

Euuhh does nobody realize Brother has existed for like 20 years and doesn’t pull all this HP shit?

You were right until around 2020 when Brother, too, started to roll out firmware updates outright blocking third party toners or even worse, making the printers intentionally print like crap with third party cartridges:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

Now, that even Brother has turned to the dark side, I really don’t know what printer to recommend other than older/used Brothers with firmware updates disabled.

Do not update its firmware and disable auto-updates:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

Brother used to be the best choice, until ~2020 when they, too, went over to the dark side and secretly blocked third party toners via firmware auto-updates.

Not sure if any non-shitty printer makers are left, there’s only so long that you can recommend “try to find an old Brother printer and disable firmware updates” is an effective choice.

Yes, the hardware (a cheap sponge, essentially) that the counter “protects” is easily replaced for little money - but you still can’t just reset the counter.

https://epson.com/support/epson-ink-pads-reset-utility-faqs

For “North American users” Epson now offers a tool to reset the self destruct counter one, single, time.

There are third parties now, that offer a reset of the software destruct counter, for a fee.

The fact that a printer sold as “Eco” has a software self destruct that the user requires an unlock key to reset - an occurrence frequent enough to make it a profitable business for third parties to sell such keys - should tell you all you need to know about these printers.

I couldn’t confirm, but there supposedly are more premium models with user serviceable waste ink tanks that don’t have a self destruct, but most consumer models very much have this limitation.

They are both terrible. HP for obvious reasons, Epson for its self destruct timers.

Until the software counter decides that the waste ink pad is full and the thing blows a software fuse.

Epson’s official solution to a full pad is to throw out your printer and buy a new one - literally a printer with a self destruct timer. Not very “eco”.