D&D General Shocked how hard it is to get new players now-a-days

[Lanefan]

I'd point out that most poeple replace their care at least every ten years and often far more frequently than that. YOu most certainly are not driving a 1960's car to commute to work every day. I doubt you are driving a car that's more than 10 years old. At least, most of us aren't.

My car is a 2009 model, bought new at the time.

 

[Hussar]

My car is a 2009 model, bought new at the time.

Yes. And?

If you’re a typical Canadian driver, your car should be hitting around 200 000 km. Which means it’s very much on its last legs. And frankly fairly impressive that it’s still on the road.

But that’s a LONG way from the 1960’s example you gave at the beginning.

Again, most people change their cars in less than ten years. Especially in the rough driving conditions of Canada. Salt on the roads does horrible things to your car.

 

[J-H]

In the US, the average age of cars is around 12.5-13.
My pickup is at 20 years and almost 280,000 miles. We only buy Toyotas because they last. I'm going to keep it as long as I can... the newer cars with touchscreens and all the extra internet-connected stuff are just loaded with more expensive stuff that will break over time or suffer from software bricking.

Used cars* are also cheaper (even factoring in maintenance), which helps with avoiding debt.
*depends on brand. Knew a guy who got a good deal on a BMW and then spent half the purchase price on maintenance in the first year or two. Apparently he really liked it.

 

[DarkCrisis]

My jeep is 14 years old. Had to put about 6K worth of work into it 6 months ago. Still better than a car payment.

 

[payn]

My jeep is 14 years old. Had to put about 6K worth of work into it 6 months ago. Still better than a car payment.

Just Empty Every Pocket.

 

[Hussar]

The point being, complaining about "planned obsolescence" and then pointing to cars seems like an odd comparison. You generally need to get a new computer about every 6-10 years. Give or take. Cars don't actually last a whole lot longer than that.

Can cars last longer than that? Sure. Yes. I am aware. Hell, I'm typing this on a 2014 Macbook Air, so, it's not like computers have to get chucked either.

But, let's be honest here. Computers improve a heck of a lot more in 10 years than cars do.

 

[KYRON45]

My jeep is 14 years old. Had to put about 6K worth of work into it 6 months ago. Still better than a car payment.

For me that would be 13 car payments at once.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Just Empty Every Pocket.

Yeah in hindsight

 

[J-H]

But, let's be honest here. Computers improve a heck of a lot more in 10 years than cars do.

Cell phones have, but computers? Not really. Graphics get a bit better for high end computer games I guess, and if you want to run AI toys you have to have Win 10 because they didn't program them to work with 7, but PC hardware speeds haven't gone up by a factor of 5-10x in 10 years like they did from 1995 to 2005 where we went from a 120mHz to 400mHz to a 1.6gHz processor in a decade.

Newer computers are worse in my opinion because they have more recent versions of Windows. The Recent Documents menu I use 50-100 times a day is missing from my work laptop (Win 11), which causes extra friction and wasted time opening and closing folders to get to a document I had up 2 minutes ago, Onedrive bogs down my entire internet connection to the point where it interferes with wifi calling to sync a single spreadsheet, newer versions of Office are SAAS instead of purchased, etc. Win 7 to Win 10/11 is a downgrade, not an upgrade, in terms of day to day quality of life.

Other than gaming, everything I do for my job and entertainment (e-mail, spreadsheets, D&D, videos on Youtube, etc.) could be done on a Windows 98 or Windows XP computer from 2004 or thereabouts, assuming the browser could handle the greatly increased file sizes caused by some of the plugins and formatting tools that somehow manage to bloat 32kb worth of text into multiple MB for the sake of looking slightly prettier.

I promise I'm not 80... only 41!

There is still improvement going on at the GPU/AI/server level, and with phones (although 2017 to 2024 phones really all seem about the same but with more memory), but on the desktop level I'm not seeing it.

But also, I'm not the target market for it... just like I'm not the target market for 5.24. Companies prefer people who are always buying the newest and greatest and biggest and shiniest, because those are the ones they actually make money from.

 

[payn]

Yeah in hindsight

I know a lot of Jeep owners... Which is why I drive a Tacoma.

Though, assuming 30K back in 2010 for the Jeep, probably 1800 in interest on a loan, the 6k in recent repairs, 2100 in oil changes, 4k in tire changes, 24K insurance, 22K in gas, 2,800 in registration fees, etc...

That Jeep would have cost you about 6700 bucks a year. Which will go down if you can get more years out of it. Probably worth around 10K private sale maybe 12K in a trade in depending on condition.

A new Jeep every 5 years is going to be 2500 or so in interest, 4K in maintenance, 8K in gas, 8,500 insurance, etc.. comes out to 12,600 a year roughly.

Even with your big 6K repair bill you are coming out ahead by not getting a new vee every 5 years.