This is one of those NYTimes "solutions journalism" pieces meant to celebrate the program rather than truly analyze it.

You can pick free, or scalable, or financially sustainable (and without sustainability, a political shift will kill it), but you cannot have all three at once. The minute you push on one, second-order effects pop up somewhere else.

It is a classic wicked problem: solving it literally changes the problem.

Big-city transit has an equilibrium point, and it is incredibly stable. Every serious transit city in the world ends up in the same place: charge fares, subsidize low-income riders, and fund the basic system with taxes.

That equilibrium is stable for a reason. Every major city that tries free transit at scale will eventually snap back to it, because it is the only configuration that does not implode under feedback loops. It keeps demand reasonable, service reliable, and the politics tolerable.

I just downloaded Google Keyboard (Gboard) and tried typing "thumbs up". It still screws it up.

Not sure if it's better that the iOS keyboard.

I thought it was just iOS not being responsive enough to my thumb-typing speed.

But this was very validating to watch.

I love my iPhone but hate the iOS typing experience. It's so bad that I bought an external foldable Bluetooth keyboard that I keep in my bag just so that I could type longer emails.

I miss my BlackBerry keyboard.

I have a Kindle, multiple iPads and an iPhone.

I only read on my iPad and iPhone because they are on-hand almost anywhere I am.

To me, the e-reading discussion is the same as the notetaking software discussion -- people obsess over the best form factor, but really most of the benefit comes from "just doing it" and keeping at it.

Most people gear up but they never end up doing it (reading continuous or taking notes).

Which ones?

If you’re thinking Scandinavian countries they are mixed economies. Most successful economies today are mixed economies.