[farisjarrah]

Conversely, I been seeing more people then ever riding, building and modifying electric and motorized bicycles. You can modify a regular $200 mountain bike with a $200 motor kit from amazon and have a $400 motorcycle that you don’t need a motorcycle license for. If you really don’t want to burn fossil fuels, a $1000 bafang mid drive ebike kit can turn a regular bicycle into a hill crushing monster and can be installed with almost no specialized tools.

The housing crisis is definitely a tougher nut to crack, but I don’t believe the auto manufacturers have quite the same leverage over the American population long term, especially if gas prices and electric vehicle prices keep skyrocketing significantly faster then inflation.

[ClumsyPilot]

> If you really don’t want to burn fossil fuels, a $1000 bafang mid drive ebike kit can turn a regular bicycle into a hill crushing monster and can be installed with almost no specialized tools.

I love electric bikes and want to install the bafang kit myself, but lets keep things in perspective - it's not gonna get my pregnant wife to the hospital.

[PaywallBuster]

you keep a car for something that will happen once per ~ 4 years?

[elif]

Commenter provided one obvious example.. that doesn't imply a lack of other examples.

Hypothermically cold/wet days, if you suffer a physical injury, going anywhere with friends, trips to IKEA, groceries that last more than a week, vacations, or the reason I stopped cycling:

a car driver randomly forces you to pay for a new bike while also giving you a concussion and 7 stitches to your face then drives away.

Happier now with my 'cage' than with the ego I used to have.

[marssaxman]

When I tried to go car-free, I was surprised to learn just how many different kinds of once-or-twice-a-year occurrences there can be in a single year.

[sofixa]

Most people in big cities live without cars and rent for the once every few years moving or whatever that requires a car.

[marssaxman]

Yes, that was the theory as I understood it at the time. As a single man in my late 20s with a remote job, I moved to the most densely populated neighborhood of the largest city in the region, bought a bicycle and a transit pass, and signed up for a car-sharing service, expecting car-free life to be easy. Instead, I found that it was... possible.

I got through a full year before giving up and buying another car. I have never been motivated to repeat the experience, though I still love city life and try to keep car usage to a minimum, getting around primarily by motorcycle.

[auxfil]

I take it you think people that get life insurance are suckers?

[Bancakes]

Statistically, yes. Assuming n of m people get insurance money, m-n people are suckers. Sorry.

[PaywallBuster]

life insurance is priced for once in a lifetime events

[saiya-jin]

There are many people who would happily pay 4 years of car ownership if it means difference between safe birth and unsafe one. If you think its rare mindset, see what happens if (very frequent when I look around) miscarriage happens, how it fucks up people in most fundamental ways and insecure they become.

And obviously there are tremendous use cases to enjoy weekends, do groceries/other shopping, helping friends and family and so on and on...

I come from Europe, currently living in Switzerland which has best rail system in the world and general decent public transport... but still owning a car is a must for 4 of us, travelling anywhere with kids is a chore and amount of stuff for weekend is impossible to carry in public transport (stroller(s), child bed, all clothing, food equipment etc. and thats just kids).

Sure you can spend all weekends in the same place if thats your thing, but it certainly ain't ours, not when we have alps just in the backyard.

[ghaff]

With some exceptions (especially in places where car ownership is a real financial/hassle burden like Manhattan), my observation is that people who choose not to own a car even in an urban environment with good public transit end up making a lot of lifestyle compromises. Even leaving aside trips to the emergency room, sick pets, etc., they just don't head to the mountains/beach/etc. because it's too big of a hassle. And especially once you get past a certain age, you can't rely on friends with cars like we did undergrad. Perfectly valid choice but, for the most part, you just don't do things that are a pain to do.

[lghh]

Well, there's also the baby after that happens.

[stephencanon]

Baby on a bike is easy (well, once they're big enough to hold their heads up). Ours (one and five) pretty much want me to take them on the bike everywhere, unless the weather is brutally wet or cold (< 25˚F for me, though a friend here takes his kid on the bike down to about 15˚).

When the weather's sufficiently bad, we take the BMW with heated seats instead =)

[krallja]

> once they're big enough to hold their heads up

I don’t think this happens before mom and baby are discharged from the hospital, so it is not relevant to the discussion.

[stephencanon]

Clearly I was taking a longer term view of the phrase "after that happens".

That said: my wife and her mother _did_ ride home on the back of her father's bicycle after she was born (in 1980s China).

[the_gipsy]

It's rains more than once per 4 years.

[aerique]

Haha, wow... where are you from?

Better tell the people in the Netherlands they can't ride bikes then!

[oblio]

This is not new tech, we've had this tech for over 100 years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_rickshaw

Some modern takes:

https://www.vanraam.com/en-gb/advice-inspiration/news/van-ra...

[mkl95]

That's not going to shrink your target demographic too much in the Western world. Birth rates are low and declining.

[dotancohen]

Birth rates of Europeans are low and declining. Birth rates of immigrants in Europe is very high, and keeps the population from declining.

[mkl95]

The EU's prediction is that population is about to reach its peak and will then decline slowly until the 22nd century or so. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/D... Imo there will be new niches populated by middle aged and old people with no kids.

[akudha]

more people then ever

More people than ever maybe, but that is a tiny fraction of the number of cars, at least in the U.S. It is like saying more people than ever are turning vegetarian/vegan. Yes, it is true, but it is still a miniscule number in the grand scheme of things, and the the change is way too slow/small to have any real impact, at least in my life time.

I love Jetbrains products, it was irritating when they went subscription model. Tableau did the same. I guess it is just a matter of time before everyone started doing it, both in digital and real world. Next would be what? 10 bucks for my washing machine that I own, $10 for my fridge, $10 for my air conditioning, stove, vacuum cleaner...

I don't know how we can fight back. They will keep pushing and pushing trying to eek out every possible cent. There are products we can simply stop using, but cars (at least in the U.S) are much difficult to avoid, outside of cities like NYC. Much of the country is built for cars

[NeoTar]

I thought the JetBrains subscription was actually a good example of a subscription - when you buy an annual subscription, you get a 'perpetual fallback license' for the version at the time of purchase - i.e. you can continue to use that version forever without further payment.

Isn't that basically a traditional (90's style) software purchase?

[sitkack]

The JetBrains subscription model is excellent.

But not only that, they went through a couple revisions with the customer to determine what the right model is.

The software that JB produces as has massive value, but it is also fragile in that it needs to be kept up to date as the ecosystem evolves. That value is fragile in the face of constant change unless you pin yourself to a snapshot of the language and all its dependencies. The JB subscription model allows for this while also enabling constant upgrades.

The way that JB handled the outcry about the original subscription model is the real innovation.

[jdsfighter]

Not to mention the yearly price breaks for continuing to subscribe to their services. I think I pay less than $15 USD a month for their All Products pack, and it's worth every penny. Much more economical than buying every release of Visual Studio.

[tm-guimaraes]

> Next would be what? 10 bucks for my washing machine that I own, $10 for my fridge, $10 for my air conditioning, stove, vacuum cleaner...

This was already happening with planned obsolescence. The EU fought that by implementing a new law that requires big home electronics to have a 10year warrant. I guess the next step for vendors is bundling “service” features for subs

[midhhhthrow]

I stopped using jet brains because they went to subscription

[tm-guimaraes]

That makes no sense. Before you payed for a version of the IDE and a year of updates. Now you pay for a year of use and you get the most updated version of your last subscription day for ever.

Basically the difference to buying every year is that you don’t keep old versions. You still get to keep/own the version of your last paying day. And you get discounts…

Unless there are really bad feature changes, there is really no reason to prefer the old model

[sitkack]

IntelliJ is Apache Licensed, https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community

That seems like a pretty spiteful thing to do for a (F|f)ree Software.

[midhhhthrow]

First they tell me I can use their IDE forever if I pay for it. Then they go back on their word and prevented me from using the thing I already paid for. They’re being spiteful to their customers

[tm-guimaraes]

You can still use the versions you paid for…

[mywittyname]

You still get a perpetual license for the version that was out when you purchased the subscription.

[midhhhthrow]

That has not been my experience

[countvonbalzac]

The built environment in most of the US is based entirely around the idea that you get in your car whenever you want to go anywhere. It's going to take a massive re-engineering of society to fix that, but it's totally worth it.

[lghh]

I would love to live somewhere where an electric bike is an option, but for many of us it is a non-starter.