I’m genuinely surprised there hasn’t been any significant effort made to make it more readable.

Quite the opposite. They’ve tried to make it better, and in turn, they’ve made it worse.

They used to have a pretty straightforward Linux file structure, and you were expected to put things in the external Pictures folder. And downloads went to the external Downloads folder. Back then, internal storage was small and SDs were large, so apps couldn’t really afford to store these things locally and the SD structure was well enough defined that it was pretty clear where pictures would go.

Now, Google has pushed against SD cards. They also started requiring more permissions for external storage. They’ve added some “documents” APIs that were supposed to make it easier to tag/find files, but it’s a tangled mess and most apps don’t touch it. And they’ve rewritten their storage model multiple times at this point. If you’re writing a new app, it’s unclear which model to even follow anymore because Google has created a giant cluster fuck of options and paradigms.

Google is actively making this problem worse and worse. I wish they had never tried to “fix” this in the first place.

IMO the thing is that people don’t care about their privacy. Sure, some people around here do, but your average person owns an Alexa, has a FB/Instagram account and constantly posts their location, uses the same password on many sites, uses TikTok, doesn’t block cookies, etc etc etc.

Most people don’t actually care. Some claim they do, but then can’t even be bothered to stop using Instagram etc because of the “inconvenience”… So do they really care?

Some companies (Apple, etc) push their products under a narrative around safety and security, and people will repeat that point as a way to justify a decision they already made, but if they actually cared, they would be doing other things too. But they don’t.

The number of us who do actually care about privacy and security is actually very small.

OK, now point me to the place I can give money for the food that doesn’t pollute/throw it all away.

And outsourcing this solves the problem how? You’re just making someone else deal with your locality’s problem.

Honestly, this is more bad “charging hygiene” than anything else. I thought this was the case too until like 10 years ago when I learned how Li-on batteries worked, and since then, I’ve had negligible battery deterioration after 3+ year old devices.

The TLDR is don’t charge your phone past ~80% except on rare days you need the extra juice, and by extension, definitely don’t leave your phone on the charger overnight. Most people do exactly that and it absolutely murders your battery health.

If you’re on Android, AccuBattery is helpful with charge alarms and detailed info if you want to learn about it.

If you have a Samsung with the “protect battery” quick option, it’s a god send and makes this all super easy.