The way we do it here in Germany is that all bottles make you pay a deposit, which you get back, if you return them to a collection point (e.g. at a supermarket).

According to this article it’s working really well, with return rates of 98%.

So at least for most bottles there is a proven solution.

Sponsorblock, which unpads the vids.

Not sure if i’d say that Sponsorblock upads videos, or at least it only does so partially. It does remove in-video advertisement and selfpromotion, but it doesn’t (and can’t really) change anything if a video e.g. has content to fill like 3min, which gets drawn out to 10min.

I’m European so I might be biased, but I haven’t really heared anyone “complaining about the Americas having no distinct culture or ancient structures”.

Das durchschnittlich gestohlen gemeldet Fahrrad.

Wenn das 50€ Ubahn-Rad weg ist wird sich niemand die Mühe machen das zu melden. Anders bei teureren und vielleicht sogar versicherten Fahrrädern, wo es dann sogar im Schadensfall nötig wird. Und Diebe werden sicherlich gezielt nach teureren ebikes und Rennrändern Ausschau halten.

So you don’t only get 2k/month, but also two houses? That’s a major difference and one of the imo common mistakes made: only looking at income and not overall wealth.

The next question is whether this gets adjusted to inflation. If no this might work now, but give it 30 years and those 24k buy much less.

Also does this mean you need to stay where you currently are? Because one way to make this work would be to move to a low cost of living country. 24k in New York is poverty, on some small island you might live like a king with it.

All that said I think overall the best thing would be to treat this as a nice safety net that gives a lot of flexibility one would otherwise not enjoy.

Maybe reduce hours worked a bit when you need more free time. Achieve some goals faster. Or go for a risky move (e.g. chaning jobs or building a one business) with the security to fall back on.