Gambling! We all do a little bit of it here and there. Simple little things like going for a drive or flying on an airplane are a gamble simply because the act itself is dangerous. Turns out, Humans aren't exactly built for flying or moving faster than say 25 MPH. So we're taking a bet that the folks who designed and built the vehicle have been able to make it relatively safe. We're gambling on the ability and willingness of other motorists on the road to follow traffic rules intended to prevent accidents. It's a gamble on society at large, which I'll admit I'm coming to realize were odds I didn't fully understand before, say, the past few years.
But that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to talk about the internet's favorite form of gambling these days, Mystery Boxes. And no, to clarify for the frequenters who have read my previous posts, I'm not talking about JJ Abrams again other than to bring up how stupid that TED Talk was and how little respect I have for the man.
I'm talking about stuff like a listing on a retailer like Ali Express, GearBest, or Wish, that promises to send you an unknown item or collection of items for a seemingly low-low price! They all look like this, advertising crap like phones, drones, and... auto... ma... clones, for what would be an absolute steal even if the item you received was a crappy chinese bootleg of the device actually pictured. I mean look how happy this couple is! They've clearly got something amazing in that question-y box there!
I genuinely wonder whether they actually paid for these stock photos.
Of course any consumer with a brain would understand that IF those items are ever included in these boxes, the frequency with which they are would be utterly inconsequential. But hey, savvy consumers are evidently kinda rare; casinos make money hand over fist based on that exact premise.
I've always wondered what sort of garbage you actually would get from one of these things, so I took a calculated gamble on the cheapest tech mystery box I could order from China. So here, check out what $4, shipping inclusive, is likely to get you in one of these things!
At first blush it actually kinda looked like some sort of fitness band. Bootleg fitness bands can actually be useful, and wouldn't feel overpriced for 8 or heck, even 10 dollars. But oh. Oh no. That's not what I got. Instead I now have, by far, the stupidest watch I have ever seen. That's it, that's the review. It was a waste of absolutely everything and it's existence in my house is frankly a pretty biting indictment of the entire human race.
So Gambling. Turns out, pretty stupid.
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