John Smith wrote:

Yet, few keep horses today as a reliable means of transportation...

That is a very U.S.- centric comment.
Horses are still very much a "reliable means of transportation"
over a great deal of the world, as are oxen.
Your comments indicate you place no value on the
large segment of humanity that lacks your wealth.
There is no "web" in ItchyScratchyStan, nor
money for $250,000 portable sat downlinks
in other such places; if they have one, it stays
broken most of the time from one of dozens of
failure modes. But one can usually get
hold of a few parts to piece together a CW rig,
*if* they have been wise enough to encourage
the preservation of the skill.

The United States is not the whole world,
and it's past time we remembered that.
D.S.