People forget that there a billionaires at the helm of these companies putting their feet on the scale of what is shown.

They are not impartial nor are the benevolent. They have a vested interest in influencing the content people are exposed to. They can hide behind the “social” components and say “we’re innocent here we just show the content people engage with” meanwhile they directly influence what content gets a chance to be interacted with.

Octopodes is the historically accurate pluralization of Octopus, but modern English has adopted octopuses.

Have you seen how wide residential streets are in America? They are also very straight and cleared of obstructions. In other countries you will see traffic calming measures such as chicanes and road narrowing. In my own neighborhood people won't park on the street because people driving 40+mph will crash into their cars randomly.

Culdesacs are effectively a rich person's solution to "Main Street is too fast and dangerous". They also don't answer the question of "how do I walk someplace useful" - like the local grocery store highlighted in the article.

For reference, I live in a "culdesac" neighborhood (3 big ones smushed together). The main suburban street that we use to actually get anywhere is 2-5 lanes wide, 40mph posted but 50mph actual speeds, with limited pedestrian crossings and in the 8 years I've lived here at least 2 pedestrian fatalities on a 2 mile stretch.

This is pretty typical of the DC suburbs (largely built in the 70s-present). Smaller enclaves that are "walkable" in the sense you can walk around the block. But they aren't walkable in the sense you can live your life sans car/bus/whatever.

Everything about American cities makes more sense when you realize they are designed entirely for cars to go fast. That is the sole metric and everything is optimized to sure cars can go as fast as possible no matter the cost, both literal and less tangible.

Sure. But you're paying property tax indirectly on rent any way. And, property tax is usually in the range of a few thousands per year versus rent being a few tens of thousands per year. An increase in tax may be weatherable whereas an increase in rent may not be. And many areas have laws where property tax for seniors is reduced or fixed

Renting only makes sense on a fixed income if you can ensure your rent does not increase. If in 15 years your rent is double what it once was, you will probably not be able to afford it.

"sophisticated behavioural machines built to capture attention"...

It just looks like a video website to me. Is this your first time on a computer? When HAVENT websites tried to catch your attention? This stinks to me like a 50+ person who first discovered the internet in the last 10 years.