I have discontinued many subscription based services due to all the price hiking and/or changing features I originally paid for.
Reading headlines like this always reassures me I’ve made the right choice. I used to pay for Amazon Prime (and the other sub channels that had content I enjoyed), Netflix, Spotify, Crave+Sportsnet. All of it replaced by YouTube Premium which I do get most of my money out of with its features including ad free music.
It’s been a couple years since I closed all my premium subscriptions and every so often I’ll get an email asking me to rejoin for 5.99 for 3 months and regular pricing thereafter (or similar price points), which only tells me the price hiking isn’t at all vital, it’s having your credit card information. It’s simple greed.
People who believe in there ever being “contact” do not comprehend the size and nature of the universe.
Rule one, it’s expanding, rule 2, faster than light.
We’ll never achieve relativistic speed, our physiology doesn’t allow “generational ships”, a fetuses brain will never develop to intelligence in freefall. Centrifugal force is not gravity.
The belief in alien intelligence is simply going to be an exercise for theocracy and philosophy, never to manifest in our reality.
Maybe as the universe evolves new physics emerge allowing for new technology, the universe was once in fact so hot physics didn’t work as we identify with it but contact within humanities existence probably won’t happen. Nice to think about though, it’s in our nature for community due to our emotional intelligence, sometimes lack thereof providing contrast.