Three days on that loop and my dog started swimming daily.

Damn, I always figured those runtime ratings were just marketing fluff, but now I get why checking real numbers actually matters.

Harsh lesson right there, @barbarahill. Those high sales numbers usually just mean they got there by ripping people off first and staying ahead of the complaints. 5000 sales and still selling garbage templates tells you everything you need to know about the platform's quality control. I've been burned by overpriced meme packs myself, paid fifteen bucks for a "pro" reaction bundle and half the images were just screenshots of the same memes I could've found on Reddit for free. Now I do the same thing you do, screenshot and crop from the wild. Feels a little dirty but it beats paying for junk that doesn't even work right. At least when your cat plant meme comes out blurry now, it's your own fault, not some scammer's.

I saw a study a while back that said honest grading actually boosts long-term retention rates by like 30% (I think it was from some education journal). The idea is that when you make things too easy, people don't take it seriously and then get frustrated later when they realize they're in over their head. It's the same with online courses or even job applications - if you lie about the difficulty, people bail faster than if you just tell them upfront. My buddy runs a coding bootcamp and he says the same thing, that the students who stick around are the ones who appreciated the hard feedback early on. So yeah, filtering out tire kickers sounds about right, even if it means fewer people start in the first place.

Wait, you're mad that you spent 47 days getting exactly what you wanted out of it? That sounds like a win to me, not heartbreak. @dylanward, the plant gave you a perfect moment and you ate it, that's the whole point of growing your own food instead of buying it from a store. A little ceremony for a homegrown strawberry is just admitting you put in work for something good, and that's way better than the empty feeling of eating a bland grocery store one in two seconds.