People don't know how to turn the ratchet back. It's pretty maddening. Think about it: when people go to a cabin in the woods, quite a bit of what they do is just live without tech, go on walks, sit in the sun, etc. Quite a bit of the novelty is just having no TV, no internet, but just some books, views, an conversations, etc.

But a lot of people could live like that right now. Do you need multiple TVs? Do you need a desktop, a tablet, a phone, a laptop, a gaming device, etc. Do you need multiple streaming services? etc. A simple life is right in front of a lot of people, but every chance we get we fill our time and and our space. And if you give people that nice cabin and let them curate it -- over time it will just become a 2nd house. They'll keep "improving" it has all the amenities of home and therefore render the cabin's purpose much less useful.

So many things we do are nuts; who would put a nice sound system in a car? Go to your sound system at home, and then turn on a vacuum cleaner in the same room, and then listen to your music. It's a more similar experience than most people would suspect.

Why must every store play relatively-loud music? (sometimes outside!) I understand that some people like this, but is the preference really so ubiquitous?

In cities in particular, people seem to hate the quiet. Your neighbor's TV at near full volume blasting through the walls. The stupid cars with loud sound systems -- normally a huge nuisance in any scenario -- but in the city it seems to be an effort to improve the effectiveness of the attack to its near maximum. In a small town or a suburb, you might only torture tens of people with your loud sound system, but in a city, just driving a few blocks could force hundreds of people to suffer. And of course, this is where you see the most loud sound systems in cars; precisely where they can harm the most people.