Seriously: why do we MUST buy so stupidly?

I want, no: I badly need a trackball. But not any trackball. I need a trackball that is:

• vertical
• left-handed
• and, finally, wired, not wireless

because batteries pollute, aren’t cheap, and thus I really, really dislike having them into things that would work just as well without batteries.

But there is nothing like that. The closest there is is this thing:

which would be fine, ergonomy-wise, but is wireless, and I am not going to spend 45 or more Euros on something that does not match all my requirements. Especially when you consider that the problem is everywhere.

Wired power tools, anybody?

Last week, I needed a new drill, and for the same reasons above I wanted a wired drill. But what I could buy at the huge hardware store near my place was this:

When I took that screenshot of their website, that huge hardware store had a handful of wired drills, mostly really expensive ones, but literally 10 or 15 times more wireless drills. All this for a customer base that is 90% people like me, that is occasional hobbysts, for whom wired or wireless would make zero to very little practical difference.

This is even more stupid than it seems

Mouses, trackballs and power tools are just three of the many product categories that are made wireless just “for fun” these days. And this is even more stupid when you remember that this “needlessly-wireless” fad doesn’t just force us to waste money on more polluting objects. It also contributes to increase for NO REASON the probabilities of economic or worse conflicts in the years ahead:

• The coming lithium wars
• Link Between the Ukraine War and the Clean Energy Transition
• Lithium: another war between the US and China

If you know where I could buy a WIRED left-handed trackball (not mouse!), please let me know. But in general…

Just refuse “wireless” when it does not make sense.