I would like to have a cheap laser engraver/cutter but I am just afraid to buy one. Most kits don't have any protection at all except for some goggles. This might be fine for yourself but not for someone stepping into the room.
Lasers are no joke.
'Don't look into the laser with your remaining eye' is also no joke.
Wel most of the time it's an investment.
So for those bidders the perceived market value is very important.
But you can also imagine this scenario: someone has a ring from a great great grantparent. The market value of the ring is $10. But the owner would only sell it for $100000. Then their would noone to bid against.
Things are worth what the highest bidder is willing to pay. There are no other reasons involved. Taste doesn't matter, history doesn't matter, material doesn't matter, the creator doesn't matter.
The highest bidder does have his reasons, but they can be very different from person to person.
I am not saying people give a fuck it is legally accurate. But since nobody ever reads the terms and conditions this could help to give a quick understanding of what you are paying for.
Everybody knows that renting a car is different than buying a car.
That's a different problem.
Right now the problem is that people think they buy something but they don't.
Nobody is going to read the terms and conditions before buying. But when you are going to rent something you know the ownership is not transferred to you.
I think one simple legislation could help a lot: forbid to use the word 'buy' in this context. Instead it should be 'hire' or 'lease' or something.
Once I 'bought' an e-book that was copy protected by Adobe (my fault I didn't read the specs before buying). But because you can only read it when Adobe's servers are online no ownership is transferred to you as buyer. You buy rights to read the book on their terms.
'Hire this book' would be fair to use in this context.
(Afterwards I successfully converted to book to an e-book format that I owned with some Calibre plugins).
I run my own email. But I think it is a software problem.
It would be nice of you could just install an email program that will set all the right settings for you. DNS, database, roles and rights, certificates, firewall and so on.
There is server management software that can do this but then you have the same problem: it is just complicated for most people.
"Except of course that it isn't an artisanal choice, a very practical one that is made increasingly impossible by the few very large email providers that are left. It should be as simple as hosting a web server."
I don't get this one. How do large email providers make it difficult to host your own email?
I host my own email. It was a pain to setup so I try not to touch it since it is running fine.
Setting up email on your own server is just complicated unless you install server management software. I am not sure big email providers are to blame for this.
Most advise is like: do what I did, if you were me, in the exact place and time as I was, surrounded by the same people as I was, and so on...
I think advise in the form of a small life lesson is more helpful.
For example: 'Take good care of yourself if you work hard.' is more helpful than 'Work hard to become successful.'.