Usually, companies value opex more than capex - opex is much more flexible. That's one of the reasons why printers, coffee machines, companies cars and other things are typically leased.
The company I work for is rather slow in adopting AI-based tooling. Recently, I discovered that our Databricks instance exposes an API endpoint that provides access to a wide range of LLMs. So I built a small local Streamlit-based chat app that lets me switch models within a conversation, add or remove files from the context, and clean up dead ends. It actually works much better than the Microsoft Copilot app we’re officially supposed to use.
I've never had this issue with any government communication in Germany. Also, all appointments I need can be booked online, so I never had to pay someone for them (wouldn't even come to my mind). Maybe it's more of an issue for particular cities?
I've never experienced any government process where paying a third party would have simplified things. I've also never heard of any third party offerings for that purpose. Could you share some examples?
Yes,measuring the energy consumption and efficiency of the conversion from electricity to light is part of the label. The light bulb example is not as unsuitable as you seem to assume. Incandescent light bulbs only convert about 5 percent of the energy consumed to light, the rest is converted to heat. LEDs, in contrast, are 6 to 8 times more efficient.
Your "does image processing..." part is also important. Different processors consume vastly different amounts of energy. A hobbyist example would be trying to run something on a battery powered ESP32 with or without deep sleep.
Didn't really think about this before, but that seems to be mainly an issue in Northern / Central America and Japan. In Germany, for example, typical household plugs are 16A at 230V.