Furnace in Progress

That's insane. Functionality during power outage was one of the primary advantages of gas over electric, the other being faster thermal response.

The stupid, it burns like hydrogen.

I take an extremely dim view of any change which makes a product less usable, especially under emergency circumstances. When you change a product in ways that mean people could die (i.e. from lack of heat) who would not have died with the old model, that really ought to be illegal.

The problem we have is that capitalism has almost no accountability. Generally you cannot solve problems if people are not held responsible for their poor decisions.

That check works if and only if alternatives and information and resources are all available.

Frex: I cannot choose to have medical privacy if all providers require electronic records. My choices are to give up privacy, or go without care. I often prefer to go without care, but that's 100% of the time yet.

I cannot choose not to eat GMOs if they are unlabeled. I can either eat them, or avoid whole categories of food in which at least one GMO exists (unlabeled). Growing my own is sometimes helpful, but cross-contamination is still a risk. Sometimes it is possible to choose named varieties (i.e. Jonathan apples are not gengineered) but often not (most labels just say "apples"). I actually advocate mass boycotts of newly franked categories. If they take a bad enough hit, people will stop doing this shit.

I cannot buy a product that is not offered for sale. If all the makers switch to a new version that does not work for me, I'm just screwed.

People cannot choose products they want but can't afford. This is why many poor folks do not eat many fruits/vegetables. Either it's not for sale, the quality is shit, or more often they're just too expensive. Same with organic: it is often desired, but rarely affordable.

Many things that look like choices really aren't. "If you don't want have back problems, get a job where you don't have to lift things." But if that's the only job, and the alternative is starving because survival needs are not guaranteed, it's not a real choice. A real choice is having two job offers that are good, or at least livable with different pros and cons.