These services should be forbidden from using the phrase "Buy it now" if they do not mean it. The phrase should be "License it now" or "Get a license" so people know what they are getting into.
I don't think it's a trivial thing to do outside of work. At most you can play with kubernetes and cloud but in an interview the lack of experience will come out because I think some stuff can only be learned at work. Especially scalability.
I have attempted this and the biggest issue is that sometimes the receipts use codes hard to understand. And the codes will change from store to store.
If you're lucky, you won't need to go to a grocery store and determine what a code means, you will only need to map the code to an actual item you bought.
> All they do is steal 30% from society that could be used for more productive purposes than make a few people who already have everything even richer.
Steal? What you want the App store to be free and become the Android Play Store which is utter garbage and hostile against small and mid developers?
> car dealers obscuring true costs of borrowing ("how much do you want to pay per month?")
That I would blame the consumer. Think about it.
I'd bet consumers looking for a car start at "What car do I like?" or "What do I need in my next car?" I'd bet pretty much no one starts by asking themselves "How much can I afford?" And if they ask that question is always on a month-to-month basis, because that matters. The now and today.
Once they know what they want, they try to get it no matter the cost. If it's more than their budget, they go for paying more in the long run but less month-to-month.
Hell I'd even say that if a salesman tells them that their so-wanted car is out of their limtis, the consumer will get mad and go all-karen on them.
> if they are not breaking the law, are they really blameworthy?
Do you think the law and regulations fell out of sky?
Or maybe we saw some shitty and bad-faith actions from powerful entities and then the people demanded to enact some laws to prevent that behavior in the futuer?
> a fair number of people I talked with back then thought she was absolutely brilliant and that her answers were the workings of a deeply complex mind.
I bet it's because she spoke with confidence. Stupid people follow confidence disregarding everything else.