neighbourbehaviour

It's very good. I haven't seen signs of breakage yet and it's permanently loaded with 2.5kg of weight. I was considering an Arkel but it wouldn't have worked as well for my purpose. I've got a convertible Arkel pannier though!

No kidding though, you look at a our made bags and outsource made ones, and there's a difference in price but not a huge one.

Not a Thudbuster but I used to have one before replacing it with this so I can provide even more info. 🫠 It's a Kinekt. I liked the Thudbuster and wouldn't ride without it. My back pain disappeared. That said the Kinekt is better. Specifically because there's a preload adjustment. The Thudbuster is either bouncy during normal riding or stiffer than you need it due to the nature of its adjustability. You put a different elastomer, each covering a range of weights. It's fine and it works, but the Kinekt allows for precise adjustment via preload to eliminate bounciness during normal riding. I think the Suntour NCX might be even better and it's cheaper if you don't care about its weight.

I don't recall where I got them from anymore. I think I've had them for a decade now. 😂

Yes. Countries where the observable reality aligns closer with the official message. The more divergence, the higher the importance of the official message to be heard and uncontradicted, in order to maintain the shared reality within the country. The closer the message to what people see and feel around them, the less important the message is.

For example, in a country where people make ends meet with great difficulty it would take persistent message that the economy is doing well to convince them in that. People can see that it's difficult to make ends meet. If the official message stops contradicting that reality, the reality will become more apparent. In contrast in a country where people have high disposable income and the official message on the economy is that things are doing well, the two align. If the official message stops, the reality keeps being the same, people keep noticing that they're doing well. And so the official message wouldn't significantly affect the shared reality among the people of that country. Therefore it isn't as important. Reality speaks for itself if you will.

That won't change anything. The financial incentives from investors driving this will demand similar policies even if they get redressed in different marketing.