It could be a different stratum of society. Maybe like politicians and businessmen. They say ~5% of Indians have iPhones, but I only know two people with iPhones (and one was second-hand).

Apple is leading in a lot of countries despite Android being the dominant OS, because the Android userbase is divided among different manufacturers. See China, for example.

India has not frozen Xiaomi’s assets as far as I know. They got a pretty big fine for tax evasion (they said they were paying the tax in China, but weren’t, or something like that).

its attempts to stir up a China vs India culture war

All the viable alternatives to Xiaomi (Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, etc.) are also Chinese, so this doesn’t really matter. Now these companies are challenging Xiaomi, but they’re doing it by offering comparable performance to price ratio and better cameras. Also, Xiaomi has conceded to our demand to set up some local manufacturing. Low-end phones are now assembled in Chennai, Bengaluru and Noida, although the components are still imported.

Ethiopia already banned petrol cars earlier this year.

The year is 2040. The nuclear powers of the world have just signed a treaty to halt all new nuke production. Across the world, people celebrate in the streets.

cuts to gloomy office

Except Dr Newtron, CEO of Newtron Industries, the world’s best manufacturer of nuclear weapons. But as he paces his office and shouts at his secretarie, the phone rings.

‘Yes?’

The voice on the other side is icy calm. ‘You appear to be in a bit of a problem’, it observes.

‘Did you call me to state the obvious?’ the doctor barks into the mouthpiece. ‘I did not become Doctor Newtron by suffering fools, you know’.

‘No, I called to offer you a way out’. The voice is unperturbed.

‘Speak.’ The doctor’s voice changes in an instant. He did not become Doctor Newtron by being a fool either.

‘Have you heard of TrickTock?’ (The voice is that of a woman.)

The doctor is silent. He is not one to admit ignorance. But the voice seems encouraging, understanding, even. ‘Tis a silly place. It is like PlaceBook, but for children’.

‘Ah’, the doctor agrees, ‘but what does it have to do with saving my business?’

‘Everything’, the voice replies.

Meet nuclear physicist Dr Newtron and influencer Zea Mayes as they try to sell the public on the idea of nuclear war. Only on Nuke, releasing this sixth of August!

I can’t find ROMs for any Infinix phone on the Lineage OS website.

I think they’re only including mainstream models.

There are two separate avian flus circulating in North America right now. The US has an unknown number of H5N1 infections, but no confirmed deaths. Mexico has one confirmed death due to H5N2, but all contacts tested negative. Of course, with how viruses work, the actual prevalence is likely 10x the official number.

Most players I know do not pay for cosmetics. ‘Whales’ - rich people who want to show off, or who love the game and want to support it - buy them. Some streamers also buy, but they get compensated by their sponsers. There is the occassional case of a kid buying it with their parent’s money, and such purchases should definitely be reversed, but otherwise I see nothing wrong.

Games cost money to develop. Unless a game is open-source, you either pay a fixed price initially, or have microtransactions. The problem is when they get greedy and do both / make it pay to win. Selling cosmetics does not affect gameplay, so I don’t mind them doing it.

Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.

Counterpoint: Cosmetics. Developers get more money, whales and streamers get to show off, and the rest of us can still play normally.