We used to have wells in the tens of thousands in central/continental Europe and many local refineries. We’ve never extracted it all, just talked ourselves out of self-sufficiency.
There were multiple contradictory reports, but it was mostly a power play, because the government controlls the prices to a large degree. In a normal market, the prices would go up and logistics could be paid for extra distribution, instead only the demand went up when people watched the news. The preper instincts are alive and well.
I’ve come to the same conclusion. We’ve been so conditioned, though, that it’s an urge to try and subsidize everything. I have the same debate with myself over and over trying to climb out of this artificial well.
I do wonder what the business strategy becomes when users pay? Because the current crop of mega corps all feed off of the network effects and that’s what they were feeding with all the freebies. They wanted businesses as customers and users as bait.
Poems have very deliberate white space and alignment. When it’s not done well, or can’t be controlled at all, poets don’t like it. Then lots of poems get posted as images to get around this. Whitespace enhances visual impression and rhythm.
It splintered after a war into multiple nation states, and everyone had a Yugoslavia-issued birth certificate but suddenly no citizenship. Each state handled it differently and it’s a kaleidoscope of edge cases.