Tech has been in aggressive growth mode since 2008 because the Fed was handing out free money (interest rate lower than inflation). That allowed investors to dump money into tech businesses in hope of rapid business expansion, which in turn makes the business more valuable.
The free money dried up. Now these tech businesses are going to find out if they're sustainable.
I'm not familiar with that YouTube channel, but the story absolutely repeats itself. A business will eventually die if it cannot turn around its finances and cannot raise money.
They may have cut themselves. Usually high level cuts are announced as "leaving for an amazing opportunity" or to "focus on family" or similar. That happens a month or two later after a deep layoff round and reorganizing. We'll see if these recent layoffs included executives by Q1 next year. Watch LinkedIn if you're that curious.
Still, it's unfair to the lower levels, including line management, because they don't get that option. It's a "thank you for your service" and a boot out the door.
Note: not all tech companies are like this. Gumroad is an excellent example of a very open and ran-differently business.
Q3 just ended. These layoffs are because the books are not looking good. Everyone is hurting with inflation and higher interest, tech being particularly vulnerable to high interest rates.
I can only hope the execs cut correctly. A second round of layoffs at a company can destroy morale enough to sink the company. Who wants to continue working at a place that fired your close peers, wondering if you're next?
One option I haven't seen suggested is a wag bag. They're a bag you do your business into that solidifies everything and makes it safe to dispose into the nearest garbage can. You'll see them used by no-trace backpackers, climbers, and dispersed campers. Carry one in your bike's bag and rest assured you have a fast and traceless method.
Don't forget to bring sanitizer or dry leaf soap for hand cleaning.
I use Cleanwaste brand, but there are plenty of choices out there. Find a local manufacturer of them.
Additionally, carry extra TP or bring a bottle-top bidet. The kits tend to not have much TP included.
Best is a matter of how you rank features! The FT-60R suggestion is a good one, but that's a choice of robustness (it's incredibly solid) over some other features. If you're after satellite work, it's not a great choice. Or if you're really interested in APRS tracking during your runs, it's also not a great choice. Or, like in my situation, I need to help my local club in working with their Yeasu 70cm repeater running FM and C4FM, which is why I have a FT-70DR.
The UV-5R is doing you well. Let's find things you'd like to do that it doesn't do well. Is it 1.25m band support? FM satellites? Audio quality? Digital modes? The radio's physical size or hand feel?
Or are you beginning to think about beyond HT, but still portable. Like HF or trying out SSB on VHF?
BMS boards can be very small for the currents demanded by HTs. I'd br surprised if they're not integrated into the packs, even if there's only two contacts.
As to if our HT batteries are... I don't know! I haven't seen a teardown of a Yeasu SBR-24LI but maybe I'll tear mine down when it kicks the bucket.
I totally agree. Heck, I don't do any digital VHF+ except for C4FM, and only then because it came on my preferred radios and I was curious. Simple, ubiquitous FM works great for me. 😁
Manufacturers are going to reuse hardware and software components to minimize engineering costs for their products. That's why we see DMR, P25, and C4FM in amateur equipment: they're modes their commercial products need. Hopefully the free nature of M17 means it'll eventually become a $0 addition to a manufacturer's offering. Although I suspect the Chinese radio brands will pick it up first in trying to get a competitive advantage. I know I'd buy a radio with off-the-shelf M17 support.
As an aside, your mountain bike mention makes me want to share some of my HF bicycle portable setup. Maybe I'll collect some photos.🤔
Don't let that hold you back! These radios are inexpensive and not rare items. If the modifications look difficult, then maybe ask a fell ham to help you. I know I would help anyone interested at my local club.
OpenRTX brings M17 to a few radios. I haven't tried it myself (digital VHF doesn't interest me) but it looks inexpensive to get into.
I'm not worried about proprietary modes on the ham bands because they cannot compete as software slowly becomes more integral to radio. There are two commonly held values that I think explain what we're seeing with digital radio today, and what the inevitable outcome will be.
Hams have money but are frugal with how we spend it. We tend to seek the highest possible value for the lowest possible price. If it's something simple, we tend to spend only a little money. If the thing is packed full of features, then $1000 will quickly disappear. A wire antenna? DIY or, at most, only buy a choke/transformer. That shiny IC-7300? Already ordered with delivery tomorrow.
Hams tend to be hackers. Proprietary is not a barrier, sometimes a fascination itself, so long as the proprietary thing can be hacked into something entertaining, useful, weird, or just for fun.
These two values, frugality and hacking, are acting together to make modes like VARA popular. These values are also why VARA and other proprietary modes are doomed.
VARA is cheap when compared to a popular competitor: PACTOR. Would you pay $1,300 or $70 for roughly the same set of features? VARA's pricing model leans into this price advantage with a free tier clearly meant to target the frugality of hams. Try VARA out and, if you like it, then $70 is cheap enough to close the sale. VARA is also a soundmodem that runs on generic computer hardware. Your average ham can download VARA today and have it running in minutes on components they already have. VARA is a solid value proposition for hacking a digital HF station together.
But, in time, an open source modem will arise. VARA will lose popularity when it inevitably competes against a free, as in beer, and free, as in freedom, tool. Selling a software modem is a losing battle against a similar software modem that costs nothing and runs on anything, operating system be damned. VARA will never run on some esoteric microcontroller, which we all know must happen ASAP. Who can say no to a Winlink toaster?
I expect digital VHF/UHF radio to follow a similar path as commercial portable radios replace hardware with software. What may be a voice codec as a chip (hardware like PACTOR) will become some DSP firmware (soundmodem like VARA). The frugal and hacker values will push VHF/UHF further into freedom; M17 and OpenRTX being a great example.
This is a regulated area, one that the SEC oversees. They've prosecuted insider trading on crypto: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-98