People seem to love those expensive solutions though.

I know so many people who invested in overly expensive battery storage systems for their solar. Power in Germany is expensive, but even with that expensive power many of those battery systems will never hit a positive ROI. But they’re still happy for the feeling of being „independent“.

I’ll turn 26 in a few months. The first time I experienced a power outage in my life was two weeks ago when a construction worker in our basement drilled into the wrong wall…

I was living in Brooklyn, NY during the 2003 blackout that knocked out much of the northeastern US for a couple of days. In those days we weren't quite so dependent on cell phones and such things. People walked home, since the trains were stopped. Guys grabbed flashlights and directed traffic. We listened to the news on the car radio. After that I went to J&R and bought a wind-up emergency multi-band radio. In the intervening 22 years, I've never used it. Though at the rate things are going, maybe that will change.

“How to waste money and valuable resources” in a nutshell.

Like it or not but we are a species of social animals, you cannot live without relying on others. That's just delusional.