@Tinnitus@lemmy.world, this is the answer.

The important part is that its giving clean power to your hardware, and it only needs to last long enough to shut down nicely. Batteries in these units are usually just car or wheelchair batteries, so you can get them cheaper just as a regular battery too.

You can also grab an older UPS with a crapped out battery for cheap and swap the battery. Last time I did that I got the UPS for $10 (local pickup) and put a new battery in for $20 from Lowes. Battery is still solid, its been about 5 years for that one.

Worth taking a look at the battery - especially an old one on a repurposed device - before considering it safe. Spicy pillows happen.

US power sucks plenty!

Texas is an extreme example, but outages happen everywhere. It was only a bit over 10 years ago when Sandy basically hit half the US and took power out in the tristate area for weeks. With climate change making things worse…

But even when things are running well, not including the random downed line or busted transformers, its still better to give your hardware clean power and avoid the small spikes.

If I can, I buy direct downloads.

If I can’t do that, I’ll buy the CD (as long as its direct or a small label).

If I can’t, or its one of the big labels, I’ll find it elsewhere. I’d rather buy merch to support the artist directly than buy anything that goes through the big labels.