But certainly indirectly with cash. All the advertised products are more expensive than they could be, due to the costs of advertising. This comes out of everyone's pocket.

14-19 years might be a respectable lifetime for a handheld electronic device, but in most cases (good care assumed) it is not a respectable lifetime for a book.

Most of their products are so large that you can easily find parts with very bad and parts with excellent code. I am not sure a whole ERP product could work with all very bad code, though.

Spanked? Hardly ever are there fines

A) actually being paid in the end and

B) high enough to be of any concern to the concern.

And this was all known for decades. Now everyone pays the price for the US leadership surrounding themselves with spineless yes-men.

> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.

But Putin would not like that! /s

Even if mankind is lucky with everything else, in 500-800 million years the sun's increased luminosity will render Earth uninhabitable for higher life forms (as we know them) [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

Possibly they think they can make up what they lost in good will and cooperation with blackmail and pressure. It is doubtful it will work as reliably as in the past, though (second order effects even left aside).

But the money is coming out of our pockets. The costs of the ads are added to product prices, which everyone is paying.

On essential goods the prices can still be high enough to make everyone poor.