A More-door-vette?
A Hodorvette?
One does not simply walk into Mordor... they drive in on a Mordorvette!

Agreed, that no-button shuffle was garbage: small capacity, no controls, and constant shuffle so the next song was always a craps shoot. I doubt the people downvoting you ever used it or were aware of it.

The rising prices for iPods now are because a certain youtuber made it popular to refurb them during the pandemic. In 2019 you could buy the OP's 5th gen for less than $15 USD on eBay.

There's a reason iTunes was considered malware for PCs. If you still have your music library, try using Rockbox instead. The website has lots of user info and the forums and r/rockbox should answer most questions.

They aren't. Apple is programming their phones to reject third party repair forcing the owner to go to apple for everything, meaning apple controls pricing, features and parts availability. Hugh Jeffreys does good teardown and repair assessments on lots of tech products, including apple. Regarding the other comment about iFixit, Jeffreys calls out iFixit (a sponsor) for their misleading apple repair scores and explains why.

The author points out as much in the middle of the article. One of the features of journalism is that the editorial side remains independent from owners, publishers and sales. The typical approach when reporting on one of them is to note the conflict of interest in the article. This isn't ironic or funny, this is S.O.P. and normal. We're just being assaulted by bad journalism, entertainment masquerading as journalism and propagandists that we're forgetting this is how it's supposed to work.

The WaPo just took a look at how much Amazon advertises on its own site and how it aggressively promotes paid content in your search results. I can't imagine GoodReads is exempt from railroading you with sponsored content.

I don't think I've ever wanted a pair of scissors more in my life

Android phones aren't calling up geologists to have them rush to amusement parks.