Any sample that is truly taken at random is representative. The question is how narrow of a confidence interval you're looking for. At a sample size of 500, your 95% confidence interval for the proportion of people who answer "yes" to a question can span up to ~10%. If that's good enough for you then there's nothing wrong with that sample size.

Where they basically call it a nostalgia gimmick? Yeah, everything can find a use as that.

An application for a typewriter? No, nobody can think of that because that hasn't existed for decades now.

You can tell the woman is American because it took her and her family two decades of suffering through a debilitating condition to save up enough money for a single visit with a doctor.