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Showerthought: I finally tried one of those $19 'mystery tech boxes' and I want to admit I was the sucker
For about 6 months I kept scrolling past those ads on Instagram for a $19 mystery box of tech gadgets and telling myself they were obviously junk, but a friend at work in Cleveland swore he got a decent pair of earbuds out of one, so I caved and ordered two boxes for $38 total. What showed up was a plastic phone stand with a cracked hinge, a USB cable so short it barely reached from my laptop to my mouse, and a screen protector for a phone model I have never owned. I kept telling myself the next box was the good one, like some kind of gambling thing, and by the time I had bought 4 boxes I was out $76 and had a drawer full of stuff I would not even donate. The thing that finally got me to change my mind was watching a YouTube video where a guy weighed one of these boxes on camera and the whole thing came to 9 ounces, meaning there was no way anything in there was worth more than a few bucks. So here is my warning, if the site shows a picture of a drone or a smartwatch next to the word 'possible' then that is your sign to close the tab. Has anyone actually received anything from one of these that was not total garbage?
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kai_chen24d ago
My dad got hooked on those $10 tool grab bags at Harbor Freight for like two years straight, same exact thing where the picture shows a drill and you end up with a bag of 40 zip ties and one stripped screwdriver bit. It's the same setup as claw machines or loot boxes in video games, the "possible" wins are doing all the work and the actual odds are never posted anywhere. I started just putting that $19 into a jar instead and after a few months I had enough for a decent pair of earbuds I actually picked out myself. The house always wins on stuff like this.
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