Joy is overpriced now
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
Exclusive insights, data, and analysis for financial market experts.
Search
Have an existing account?
Sign In
I wish we could be sustained on profits. These companies keep making record profits and still we have homelessness, hunger, crumbling infrastructure, dilapidated roads, etc.
If only there was a way to be fulfilled by having so much extra money.
Sadly so. I’m literally doing my thesis on this, and the trajectory is clear. We’re in late-stage capitalism—corporate monopolisation, financialisation, declining product quality, and systemic inequality. This isn’t sustainable. The next phase is crisis: economic downturns, institutional distrust, social unrest, and either authoritarian crackdowns or radical reform. From there, two paths: Techno-feudalism—corporate-controlled digital serfdom with AI policing and UBI dependence; or Post-capitalism—decentralised economies, AI-managed resource distribution, and sustainability-driven models. Long-term, either a post-scarcity future or full societal collapse and reset. The next 20 years will decide which way it goes.
They really found a way, to essentially replace cable, with more ads AND a higher monthly bill with these stream apps.
If I wasn’t so strapped, I’d be impressed.
Along the same lines, hobbies are so expensive. Anything and everything somewhat satisfying is just to expensive. Walking and collecting rocks is free 😂
I finally gave up on google search (and eventually I’ll get rid of chrome too)
The amount of relief that freedom from shitty ai summaries and ads is indescribable
It was always this way, things didn’t just become bad lol
Kinda nice to see folks in black spaces increasingly saying this type of shit. Solidarity and support is where it’s at, MLKs word on the “burning house” that is America. The problem is and always has been capitalism to some degree.
Southwest will be hurt by this. They’re NOT in competition with DL UA or AA. They’re in competition with spirit, frontier, Alaska etc.
They will learn very quickly that the image Herb had for his very successful structure won’t work with greed.
I hate that for southwest bc it used to be a good airline. But greed. They have to squeeze out every single dollar they can for themselves…. Herb is literally rolling over in his damn grave because of these greedy fucks
Google really is kinda borked now, search results is all boosted slop.
I don’t know if this relates, but I literally looked up what is the most popular websites these days. It’s basically reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and the rest is garbage ai sites.
I miss having a dozen websites to go to instead of just reddit.
Let’s just dump as many billionaire-owned apps. We might as well get books or start writing our own “how to” notes, because they will soon block us finding out how to do stuff. Never thought I would say this, but I miss Block Buster *(tired of figuring out which platform to find a show on)*, Altavista, and Ask Jeeves *(I like searching with out filtering and AI)*.
The real issue isn’t the price hikes, it’s that all of that “joy” is actually just consumption.
I believe the term is Enshittification
My dad used to take Southwest from Dallas to Houston once a week for meetings. Back in the day they had a promotion where they’d give you a bottle of Chivas Regal for every roundtrip full fare ticket you bought. They’d hand you the bottle as you boarded, they quickly ended that promo and changed it to where you got the bottle *after* you got off. He said it was pretty wild. Corporate greed and handsy Houston businessmen ended a good thing.
Does anyone else remember the end of Fight Club?
The 90s were the height of human civilization
The problem is there’s a little to no regulations anymore this free market s*** has never worked
Seeing everything get passively worse while everybody talked about how amazing the country is. The Simpsons Movie was truly the prophecy. Matt Groening does it again.
Gotta fall in love with experiences. With social media, we have put too much emphasis on THINGS! Tik tok SHOP. Amazon prime. Clothing hauls, target runs yada yada…
In a society that has abolished all adventure, the only adventure left is to destroy that society.
The trick is to stop buying things from these companies. Every dollar you spend is a vote for that thing to continue to exist.
Thanks boomers
I’ve been telling people to really take a look at their lives and simplify. Read more books. Visit parks. Explore your creative outlets whether its writing or painting or even simply coloring in a coloring book. Go to Goodwill and buy some CDs and DVDs and get off the internet for a bit. Simplify so you don’t become so reliant on these tech companies and all they control. There is joy to be found in so many different places in life and people have chosen to tie it up in the digital world. We need to decouple from it a bit.
Someone predicted Google falling off in a discussion we were having a few years back. I called him crazy as at the time Android, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, etc were all popping. Then Google got caught lacking in the genAI space somehow and have been playing catch up since. That and the threat of them cancelling apps we all love for no reason…scary hours. Somebody called them the Walmart of the Internet and we all saw what happened to them when Amazon rolled onto the scene.
nothing good ever lasts
Add video games to the list
Late stage capitalism is a thing. Buckle up people, it’s gonna be a long six months (if we last that long)
Literally bout to cancel Netflix in the next couple days once my billing cycle is done. It’s just background noise and I can find anything I wanna watch for free.
Southwest was profitable too they get hit with a hostile takeover to make them do this. Never flying with them again. I honestly still think streaming is a huge upgrade from before though
The middle class is disappearing; economic mobility is disappearing. Income inequality is creating an economy that is driven by high earners while everyone else fights for scraps.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-cant-afford-life-anymore-and-they-just-dont-matter-to-the-economy-like-they-used-to-5c5aaca5
Yellowstone has the chance to do the funniest thing.
At least we can all tweet about it.
Even IKEA is shit. Overpriced bad quality is not a good combination.
Yes! This! I’m so glad we’re talking about this.
Consumers just need to stop buying this garbage. It is overpriced and not creating the joy it once was because we know how the products and services are draining our communities now. The evidence is overwhelming.
Oh no what happened to Southwest
As soon as my boys are out of the house I’m cancelling everything.
Looking forward to swap meets, reading books, dinner parties, baking, antiquing, and fixing broken tools and things for neighbours.
I really don’t like blaming ‘greed’ because it lays all the logical conclusions of capitalism and market society on individual pathological vices
Like it’s not greedy ceos or rich people that are doing this, that’s really bad because the implication is that we can do better within these systems if we replace them with good ceos or conscientious rich people who have a better mindset. These outcomes are baked into the system itself, you cannot change or avoid them, this is how capitalism INEVITABLY turns out and anyone in these companies who tries to do anything different will be fired for ‘underperforming’ because they fail to make line go up. And they’ll be replaced by some cold blooded empty suit lizard person who WILL enshittify the product, cut wages, and lay off workers to boost profits. The system is unfixable. You can only regulate and patch it up and kick the can down the road so much, eventually you have to reckon with the only real solution, which is that capitalism needs to be replaced by socialism.