The state is actually a big part of the problem in this case. Small gas trucks are effectively illegal.
Automakers were fucking around with vehicle classifications in the 2000s to get around CAFE regulations. Things like the PT Cruiser were being classified as trucks. So starting in 2012, CAFE regulations were changed so that fuel economy standards were based on vehicle footprint. But it had a huge unintended consequence.
Suddenly a Toyota Corolla had less-strict fuel economy standards than small commercial vehicles like the Dakota, S-10, and Ranger. Notice how all 3 models were discontinued by 2012? And now that the Ranger is "back" its footprint is larger than some old F-150s?
As the CAFE standards get stricter over time, manufacturers have learned it's easier to just make the car bigger than to meet the fuel economy standards. They've made the marketing about penisnsize and shit, but it's really more about meeting regulations.
A more recent casualty was small cargo vans. The Transit Connect, ProMaster City, and NV200 were all discontinued by 2022 because small cargo vans can't meet CAFE. This is also why New York had to cancel its new Taxi fleet that was based on the NV200.
Way too many jobs require degrees to apply as well. Yeah, if you're a doctor, scientist, engineer, or other specialist that really does require advanced education, you need that level of education.
But I'm hiring a new permit tech to process contractor registrations, take permit payments, and answer the phone. It's ludicrous that the city wants them to have a degree in "Public Administration, Fiance, Construction Science, or a related field."
And the flying is, it was much cheaper when it wasn't mandatory. Liability insurance used to be super cheap because people didn't want to pay for insurance that didn't cover their own car. But when states started mandating liability insurance the price skyrocketed.
What grinds my gears though is being required to have liability insurance for every car even though the car itself isn't covered. I'd love to daily drive a super-efficient electric car, but I teach scuba on the side and once or twice a week end up having to haul a bunch of dive gear in my cargo van. But with the cost of liability insurance, I can't afford to keep my van as a beater weekend driver when the time comes to get a new daily driver, so I'll have to buy another fuel-guzzling murder machine that I mostly drive to an office job downtown.
It's the reddit community I most consistently miss. The community there is huge and very active, as are spinoff subs like underwater photography.
But I decided to leave reddit in 2023 with the API changes, and I've resisted going back. I like Lemmy, but I feel like I just have to keep my feed set to all, whereas on reddit I had a highly curated list of subs.
That kinda highlights the problem. Search "scuba". There are 4 separate communities:
There are 39 total posts between them, but the one tied with the most posts has zero active users. The one with the most comments ranks 3rd in posts and only has one active user. The one with the most active user only has 2 comments according to the search.
If I search the same term on sync while signed into .world, I get different communities and very different user counts for those that are in both searches:
None of these communities are really active. But between them they would have had have the user base to get it going. Finding a community and getting the critical mass needed for it to thrive is made much harder with this amount of fragmentation.
The thing is it's super hard to start a niche community due to a fundamental issue with federation. Which instance do you start the community in, and how do people find it?
With reddit you just needed /r/[obscurehobby]. In lemmy you need to check all the instances, and you may find a different versions of the community, but all of them are dead with like 2 posts from 8 months ago because they never got the critical mass needed to catch on because the community was split.
Now I want to design motorized heelies to fit in platform shoes.
But first I should probably learn to design motorized shit that's more sophcsticated than "turn on switch and go full-tilt with no fuses or battery protection circuits."
The city I work in installed Flock cameras. City Council was clear they were only to be used to flag license plates for active felony warrants, silver alerts, and Amber alerts.
In less than 48 hours they were using them to give out tickets and track people who had turned in Open Records requests regarding the police department.
When the butchers at a single Walmart store in Texas formed a union, Walmart retaliated by firing every butcher nationwide and switching to only pre-packed meats for all stores.
They'll put themselves through a lot to make sure the peons don't get too uppity.
They're not aliens. They're demons.
You never actually see a spaceship. They don't ever show any technology or even clothing.
And they're defeated with an act of faith.