SORRY TO EVERYONE ELSE FOR GOING OFF TOPIC.

I didn't see you 41 day old reply to me until it was too late to comment on it. So here's a sarcastic "thanks for ignoring what I wrote" and telling me that exactly what I was complaining about is the solution to the problem I was complaining about.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46114935

1) I told you my household can't use Target or Amazon for unscented products, without costly remediation measures, BECAUSE EVEN SCENT-FREE ITEMS COME SMELLING FROM PERFUME CROSS-CONTAMINATION THANKS TO CLEANING, STORAGE, AND TRANSPORTATION CONDITIONS. SOMETIMES REALLY BADLY.

FFS. If you are going to respond, first read.

I also mentioned something other than "government intervention to dictate how products are made" as a solution to this issue, namely adequate segregation between perfumed and non-perfumed products.

And I care less about my wallet than I do about my time and actual ability to acquire products that are either truly scent free, or like yesteryear, don't have everlasting fragrance fixatives.

For people in my position, which make up a small percentage of the population (that still numbers in the millions), the free market has failed. We are a specialized niche that trades tips on how to make things tolerable.

SORRY TO EVERYONE ELSE FOR GOING OFF TOPIC.

I was also disappointed that they dropped Unity.

I stayed on a workable Unity install on 2020.05 LTS for as long as possible, then switched to 2024.05 LTS, at which point Unity, for some reason, no longer functioned (even though I was using the Ubuntu Unity flavor). Tried Gnome for a while but what ultimately lost me was the notifications. To close out a notification without switching focus I had to, very carefully, click right on the X in the upper right corner. Otherwise it would activate the notification and switch focus.

I've got a workable setup with XFCE4, the whisker menu bound to the super key, a few panel plugins to make a maximized app have the same behavior as they did in Unity, and the Plank docking program (along with a brief shell script bound to the dock that kills and relaunches Plank when it starts moving out of place). The notifications work the same as they did on Unity - clicking on them dismisses them unless you click on the "activate" button to switch focus.

> This is why apps with "versions" usually have support periods, because it would be impossible for them to support everything.

And that's fine. Just leave it that way and stop with the rolling feature updates that a person can't block because the only way you sell your software is as SaaS.

> Those examples of harm are not good ones.

I emphatically disagree. See you at the ballot box.

> but it's not a major practical concern for any end users so far.

My wife came across a post or comment by a person considering preemptive suicide in fear that their ChatGPT logs will ever get leaked. Yes, fear of leaks is a major practical concern for at least that user.

I'm just formulating an argument that a free market is not the be all and end all. If you have the money, bespoke is better. And if you don't have the money, making it yourself is better, if you have the skills (which most don't for most purposes).

Issues that do plague the current market in the US, that impact my household enough to notice, are:

1) Product trends. When a market leader decides to go all in on something, a lot of the other companies follow along. We've seen this in internet connectivity, touchscreens in new cars, ingredients in hair care products, among others. This greatly limits the ability of consumers to find alternatives that do not have these trends. In personal care products this is a significant issue when it comes to allergies or other kinds of sensitivities.

But in general just look at the number of people who complain about things such as a lack of discrete buttons for touchpads. Not even Framework offers buttoned touchpads as an option, despite there being a market for them.

It's obvious that it's the vocal, heavy spenders who determine what's on the market. Or it's a race to the bottom in terms of price that determines this. It's not the average consumer.

2) Perfume cross-contamination as an extension of chemical odors in general[0,1]. In recent years many companies with perfumed products such as cleaning agents have increased the perfume or increased its duration with fixatives. This amplified after so many people had their sense of smell damage during early COVID (lots of complaints about scented candles and the like not having an odor anymore, et cetera).

This wouldn't be a problem from a consumer point of view except that the perfumes transfer to non-perfumed products - basically anything that has plastic or paper absorbs second-hand fragrances pretty well. I live in as close as we can get to a perfume-free household, for medical reasons. It's effectively impossible to buy certain classes of products, or anything at all from certain retailers, that doesn't come perfumed. There are major stores such as Amazon and Target that we rarely buy from as we have to spend a lot of money, time, and effort to desmell products (basically everything purchased from Amazon or Target now has a second-hand perfume).

It's possible to have stores that have both perfumed products and non-perfumed products such that perfume cross-contamination doesn't occur. But this requires the appropriate ventilation, and isn't something that's going to happen unless one of the principals of the store has a sensitivity.

And then there are perfumes picked up in transit from the wholesaler, trucking company, or shipping company.

I hope someday to win Powerball or Mega Millions so that I can start a company dedicated to perfume-free household basics. That are guaranteed to still be perfume-free on delivery.

0 - https://www.drsteinemann.com/faqs.html

1 - https://dynamics.org/Altenberg/CURRENT_AFFAIRS/CHINA_PLASTIC...