Man, they quite literally don’t make them like this anymore. I miss them.

That’s… what the subscription cost is for. For the developer to make a living.

To be fair, this is not a windows exclusive problem, especially in the age of smartphones and flatpak.

Being born in 2000 would make you 23 years old today… which means you could feasibly have graduated college by then. So maybe less weird than you think.

To echo what some other people have said, these algae tanks absolutely should not be used instead of trees. If I see a tree get chopped down and replaced with one of these, I’ll be sad and angry. However, these can go in places where trees can’t go, like rooftops. And you don’t have to either wait for a tree to grow for a decade or take a tree from somewhere else to install one. It also serves as both a seating area and can mount a solar panel on top. These and trees both have their place and should both continue to be used.