case by case, maybe one is not directly linked to the other.
however in the mindset of ATT and telco management, all these things are linked. It's like when Microsoft supported Apple or soft pedalled some of it's legal case against linux in the late 90s and early 2000s - it wasn't directly linked to the government suing them for bundling a web browser circa late 90s, but in the management of Microsoft, they had to gauge their decisions against whether the government might object to their behavior, essentially whether their "brand" with the government regulators would be damaged if they, say, systematically obliterated linux the way they did Dr Dos in the late 80s/early 90s.
the second generation Prius 2004-2009 has a dashboard instrument cluster flaw where the capacitors go bad after a number of years and it stops working.
this is well known in the prius chat boards.
Toyota also knew about it, but instead of making it a safety recall, they put out a service bulletin: T-SB-0172-09 Combination Meter - Intermittent Display
If you search the web for that you will find a ton of hits.
The solution is to replace the entire instrument cluster circuit board. If you have a replacement board, It's relatively easy, maybe an hour of work if you are handy, and there is no soldering unless you have no replacement and want to replace the bad capacitor yourself, and maybe a transistor. You will probably break your A/C vents in the process because they are made of a type of plastic that becomes extremely brittle with age.
There is a guy in Texas, Texas Hybrid Batteries, who will sell you a refurbished dash circuit board for $150 if you mail him yours. Buying a new one is a bit spendy and may require going through a dealer depending on laws, since the odometer is part of the assembly and has to be 'flashed' to what your vehicle was before the swap. However on cars of this age the odometer is often up to about 200,000 miles and exempt from a lot of the odometer laws.
in my experience, the embarassement of a job doesnt come from the technology you are working with.
it comes from the people you are working with, and the people you are serving as customers, and whether these stakeholders are being treated well and having their needs met.
