Is that why Apple has got the US by the balls because people want to avoid the dreaded green bubble in iMessage? I’m not from the US so that might be me misunderstanding the situation, but I’ve been told that even many adults in the US view that as a valid reason to avoid anything that’s not an iphone, because of some social stigma attached to the green bubble.
I think Americans have a somewhat distorted view of what trains do.
I live in Sweden’s second biggest city, and visit Stockholm the capital regularly as I have family there. I can tell you that the price for flying often is cheaper than the train, and the train takes about 4 times as long to arrive to Stockholm. But I can’t think of a single person I know that doesn’t take the train to Stockholm from here.
There’s more to travel than the number of minutes on the mode of transport. There’s getting yourself to the airport here, and from the airport in Stockholm. There are security checks in airports that take time and are often frustrating. There’s the crammed space where you sit very uncomfortably. There’s the bad air in the plane itself. Planes are just a frustrating exoerience. The train takes me from the train station at the center of my city to the center of the destination, it’s spacious, it’s comfortable, you can move around in a train, you can even do a lot of work during the trip if you want to. Trains are a pleasure to ride, planes are a pain. So just looking at the ticket cost and travel time on the transport mode itself ignores the many advantages trains have over planes. Hell, even my dog is always with me on the train, while he’d be staying at home if I was flying.
This is the silliest argument of all, it’s just a recipe for feeling completely helpless and perhaps turning into a total nihilist. Almost nothing you do as an individual will make a dent in the bigger picture, you being one individual and the bigger picture being the bigger picture. Going after big industry? You think you as an individual have a chance of making a dent in the bigger picture if you “go after big industry”, whatever that means? No, no dent, bigger picture remains. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though, because trying is all you as a single individual can do. If the only things worth doing are the things that “make a dent in the bigger picture”, then you as a single individual would be absolutely irrelevant. Nothing you do would be worth doing. That’s no way to live.
“Whatever you do in life will be insignificant but it is very important that you do it, because you can’t know.” -Gandhi