[antonvs]

> But the cost of them limits most people's ability to endulge that.

Sounds like you’ve never been to the US. Thanks to cheap credit, every hillbilly and redneck has one of these. Which feels like about 60% of the population sometimes.

[SoftTalker]

I have lived in the US my entire life. And yes pickup trucks are part of the "country" or "rural" identity to some extent but most people who live in rural areas actually use their trucks as trucks frequently. They pull trailers, or use them to haul furniture, appliances, building materials, trash... all the stuff that has delivery services in the city but you have to do for yourself if you live in the country.

[antonvs]

Earlier, you wrote:

> It's honestly not that many.

I can't identify with this. You see these trucks everywhere. There are far more of them than there's any reason for - other than the whole weird only-in-America "light truck" regulations that relax emissions requirements for these trucks. Basically, a big reason we see so many of them is that the US simply refuses to take global warming seriously, instead basically saying "we're going to stick it to the planet as hard as we can, damn the consequences."

And when I said hillbillies and rednecks, I'm not talking about the actual people using their trucks for what they're supposed to be used for. I'm talking about the pavement princesses which wouldn't actually haul anything in their trucks because it would scratch the beds. They have the hillbilly redneck mindset without doing the work that justifies it. The truck is an emotional support vehicle for them, or a gender affirming vehicle. And there's no world in which you can honestly say "there aren't that many" of those in the US.