NotRoryWilliams

You don't like asking hookers to make change?

Interesting bit of trivia: The YKK zippers developed for space suits since became popular for civilian dry suits for diving and water sports, although they are now being displace by newer less-bulky TiZip rubberized zippers in most civilian applications. You can buy a Gore-Tex suit with space zippers from Kokatat for about $1100.

Just one of the little ways that the space program has made life safer for civilians. Those suits drastically reduce the risk of drowning and hypothermia for the people who wear them, which include firefighters, paramedics, park rangers, and fishermen. (And also us crazy adrenaline junkies who like to kayak and sail in freezing water for fun.)

Why isn't this a thing?

Because that wouldn't be a gopro, it would be a MILC, and there are dozens of perfectly good ones of those on the market. Your question just kinda evokes the image of asking Elon Musk why he doesn't try making a car with maybe a gasoline engine and a manual transmission... Or asking Apple when they're gonna come out with their own mainframe now that the Apple II is taking off.

This was all over the announcement threads when the Session was launched... the Session is the natural future evolution of the GoPro, it captures the essence of what is GoPro better than recent models and really looks like the logical future direction for action cameras. People chimed in to complain about the smallness, fixed battery, fewer resolution options, lack of a viewfinder, and lack of changeable optics. If you want all of those things, Nikon, Canon, and Pentax make perfectly good cameras that do all of those things... and going into that established and saturated market, in a direction away from the core business that has made GoPro great, would be a generally bad move. That whole "be just like the establishment guys" approach is exactly what nearly killed Apple in the 90s.

That being said, there are a few counter examples, including within the outdoor space. Sweet Protection, who make the best watersports helmets in the world, decided to delve into "soft gear" recently and has kicked enough ass to already nearly dominate that market as well, and of course you could argue that Apple's foray into phones may have been similar. Were GoPro to make a MILC, it's certainly possible that they could do something innovative and compelling; of they put one out that was as rugged as a GoPro but as powerful as a Nikon SLR, it would indeed be pretty killer... but Nikon has been in that business a heck of a lot longer and it's a somewhat different ballgame.

I have to admit I actually looked up her date of birth.

She's almost 70.

Before the advent of Social Security, more than half of all seniors died in poverty. Now almost none do.

Depending on your definitions of poverty and of "almost none."

I now do the same job as OP, as a social security lawyer. Social Security retirement benefits certainly help to alleviate elder poverty, but for many, the retirement benefit still leaves them well below the regional poverty line. People who were always poor are generally still poor while collecting SSA retirement benefits, although that level of poverty is more manageable with the associated benefits. For example, Social Security income is "judgment proof" which enables elders and the disabled to obtain relief from creditors. And Medicare alleviates much of the cost of health care.

OP and I do not work in the retirement section of the system, but on the disability side. People who collect disability benefits from Social Security are not consistently "middle class." I have had many clients whose SSD benefits are only a few hundred dollars a month, with SSI filling in the gap to bring them up to the poverty line, usually around $700 a month, although they also usually become eligible for other means-tested benefits such as SNAP and subsidized housing. But they are still poor. Not utter abject destitution, but definitely poverty by all commonly accepted definitions.