> Anything you buy from AliExpress for the cost of a couple of pints is bound to be a bit crap.

This line kinda got me down, because, well, last night I went out for a few pints and paid €16 for two drinks; Here we have a miracle of modern technology available shipped to your door for about the same price of what it now costs to just go out and do the thing people have done when socializing for the last 1500 years.

We're subsidizing the costs of all this modern tech by heavily taxing ourselves on the things once taken as nearly the bare minimum lifestyle.