My boss once said, in front of all staff that it's proven that more money doesn't make people happy, and I suggested that we swap out paychecks. She laughed, nobody else did.
It's also possible that they work people until they die, as all the AI from companies communicate and if you get fired from one, you can't get work anymore. People are a resource that keeps regenerating after all.
I know many people, including me, that fall victim to the manipulation of advertising.
Back in the olden days, it was "here is my product, and this is the price, if you like it buy from this store"
Now it's not just the actual ad, it's product placement in tv and movies, celebrity endorsement, influencers, and all that.
Just remember that advertising costs money, and that is in the price of the product. Products that don't advertise can easily be better value.
I use Zerotier. I have a rpi sharing my Linux isos through a commercial VPN. The RPI has Zerotier as well as my other devices, so I can connect to it from anywhere as if it was on my home network.
I kinda went crazy and thought I'd grab every artist I liked and the whole discography (even if I only liked one track) in FLAC. Big stress test on the old rpi2 with 100s of concurrent downloads.
I just started recently. Piece of piss to set up and yes more storage is needed in the near future because i started to grab music as well (although recent events have slowed this). 8tb only goes so far...
My boss once said, in front of all staff that it's proven that more money doesn't make people happy, and I suggested that we swap out paychecks. She laughed, nobody else did.