I think you are misunderstanding. The part they are talking about are just the small boxes in the center, labelled "mort" "ratchet" and "home assistant.". You can get used office PCs like those for around the cost of a rpi, and they are way more powerful, but with a low power draw.
Well, yes, you can self host a VPN to access your home network, I do that as well. That is not the context for proton et al though, and you can't self host a privacy VPN.
The meal the article starts with is $8, so yes they are shrinking the prices too. That's a big point in the article, that people who aren't eating entire meals will not want to keep paying full price for meals they mostly throw away
The thousands of times I've taken trains and subways in NYC, I've seen some weird people, but never any scary ones, and the ny subway seems to have the worst reputation too.
This thread that is explicitly about the outfit? We are focusing on the clothing because it is a joke about the clothing.