That we can just rely on some basic, useful properties is, in my mind, one of the key differences to "third world countries". I don't need to check if my tap water has lead in it because I know that I won't, so I can use this time more effectively to "increase the GDP". I've lived in Vietnam for a year and learned there how impactful these guarantees can be. It is absolutely possible to deal with the problems, but especially in sum it wastes a lot of time and money.

In the west, I should not need to check that my utility or email provider is trying to screw me over. I should be able to rely on clean water coming out of the tap all the time, with minimal effort (paying fair bills) on my part.

The provider cannot claim that is would be too expensive, or that it would scale worse - that's a solvable problem. If it is more expensive, then that's the true cost that just has to be paid. Yes, the company cannot just dump your waste in the river. Yes, the company cannot just deactivate an email account with sending a paper letter.

> I should be able to rely on clean water coming out of the tap all the time, with minimal effort (paying fair bills) on my part. [...] If it is more expensive, then that's the true cost that just has to be paid.

Thankfully all these tech products are services you can pay for to be reliable!

It's an interesting perspective to compare the different economies, but the pain point isn't so much classic products you pay for but the ones you rely on without having any say about your access because you're the product being sold. Being the product means Google etc. need to make it work for 98% of the people, the default cases, because otherwise they lose a lot of people that could have made them money (from app developers' transaction cuts, advertisers paying for impressions, etc.) as well as to prevent that a competitor can easily do better, but it doesn't mean they lose sleep over losing your custom specifically. It's not tied to any tangible amount

An individual's value is very variable, especially when they try to avoid a dependency on these tech products and essentially only cost money because they make minimal use of it. People like me are the easiest to cut off, and that's where a society's dependency hurts: I am not here by choice, I actually need this (e.g. a transport app from an app store to buy tickets or unlock vehicles or request rides: I need at least one of these to reasonably get around in a city and there is no alternative)