

Yeah the “shopping around” aspect isn’t even close these days. I remember ~25 years ago using price aggregator sites to pick up individual PC parts from all different websites.
Today the situation is flipped. It isn’t difficult to find a really good price. If you buy all your parts from the same retailer, you’ll be way closer to the minmaxed optimal price than in the past.
The problem is that right now the “good” prices are crazy.






As somebody who (1) loves the beauty of the natural world and (2) lives in the USA, I’m hearing that NZ might be a most excellent place to retire, or even move to earlier.