It’s cheaper for an individual in Cuba to buy an air-conditioner overseas and pay to ship it to Cuba. People don’t want to buy them from corrupt, government-controlled stores and pay the far higher cost.
The government put a stop to that by claiming those things used too much electricity and buying them from anyone but a state-run store has been illegal since 2005.
But they have given up. People were actually not going to pay 3X just because the government forced them, even in a country where three generations of people have been raised to take it.
Pesky Cuban government, it removes one of the last remaining obstacles in thinking we are better than them. If the communist dictatorship suddenly makes computers legal, I may move there. I dig those 1950s cars they drive around.