- Comedy
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115- Subscription Hell
K Sera discusses about subscriptions, access to digital multimedia, ownership versus license, generational differences, and the wider trends that will shape our future. Micah adds the capitalism perspective and how our current economic systems are accelerating the demise of the middle class. Phil goes a bit overboard with subscription lightbulbs.
Shownotes: N/A
K Sera's afterthoughts:
Subscription Hell is an apt title.
Since recording this episode, I have continued to turn this subject over in my mind.
Maybe this speaks to my economic class (and the economic class of people I spend time with), but I notice a lot of fast fashion, fast furniture, and fast meals. The clothing we buy is low quality and flimsy, but also stylish and easy to mass produce - a LOT of clothing ends up in landfills. Fast furniture has some truly beneficial qualities for the consumer who moves a lot or wants something functional, trendy, and easy to replace when they decide to change up their decor. Being made of inexpensive, light material makes these pieces super convenient for the individual consumer, but again, these pieces don't last and also end up in landfills in higher numbers and more frequently than quality pieces. They are much easier to damage and they can't really be repaired in the same way a higher quality piece can - or, the cost to repair it is actually more than just tossing it and buying a new one to replace it. The magnitude of waste is really upsetting.
Fast food could probably have its own topic. Why would you ever bother learn to cook or even care about quality nutrition when you can save time and effort by just picking up take out? Why would you make and bring a home-cooked lunch to work when you can just buy microwavable box-dinners that can be ready in less than 3 minutes? The problem is that those foods are full of so much sodium and preservatives and who knows what else, which will have long term health impacts that will eventually catch up with you. BUT THAT'S FUTURE ME'S PROBLEM. Also, health care? Who's she? Have we met?
I guess, my hope for the future is that we can find a balance between convenience, quality, and the long term health and environmental impacts. I hope that we continue to work towards more sustainable consumption, which, in a way, digital access to entertainment is a significant contribution. You don't throw your library containing thousands of digital books, music and movies into a landfill, after all. So, that's good. But that brings us back to the issue at hand: subscription hell.
Dividing our paychecks into half a dozen subscriptions or more on top of other bills, which are, also basically monthly subscriptions if you think about it... Where the hell is the pie slice for our savings? How the hell are we ever going to build wealth or equity if we're trapped in a cycle of endless subscriptions bleeding us slowly from a thousand cuts?
This forces a consumer with a limited pool of resources to prioritize and cut out the excess. The problem is, for a lot of people, there isn't a lot of fat left to trim, and some of the "fat we can trim" might be extremely important in other interpersonal or emotional ways that make that choice a lot harder. Entertainment might sound like a luxury or a frill, but I'd argue that a healthy mind requires at least some enrichment.
And with that, I think I need some enrichment in the form of solving shrine puzzles in Zelda: totk for an hour or so.
Phil's after thoughts:
I am, right now as I type, cancelling my Comcast internet service. This is how much this episode enraged me. Comcast decided, on their own, to just double the internet price for reasons. There is no speed improvement, or data quality or higher consistency or anything that actually makes it worth double the price, it is just simply: you pay us more now.
I would argue that the internet is not a luxury item, but that is beside the point. The truth is every company wants to be Comcast, and heaven forbid they start making everything that is necessary to sustain oneself as a subscription service. Perhaps it already is (depending on how we stretch the definition of Subscription).
So the silver lining (or positivity spin): we are training the next generation to be more aware of purchasing quality things. I had some "generation training" just yesterday about how Millennials and Gen-Z behave (stereotypically) differently compared to Baby Boomers (and Gen-X for that matter) when it comes to how we treat our health and work-life balance. Corporations realize that the younger white-collar workers will not be treated as wage-slaves and refuse to work 50+ hours a week for a job that shows no loyalty back. The fact that the younger generation is more health conscious is primarily due to the fact that they are being priced out of healthcare, so they have to "mitigate the risk" as much as they can (rather than eat the copious amounts of fast food the previous generation indulged in). I see this behavior of not eating the right foods or drinking in a healthy way in my parent's generation. More young people, for example, drink far less compared to their older colleagues.
Basically, because we are living in a two-speed economic system, the middle class is literally "showing, not telling" their children that we accept hand-me-downs as not as an embarrassing thing, but more of a shrewd and savvy thing. Parents are really "subscribing" (ironically) to the "buy-nothing culture" (on Facebook, of all places) to prevent things from piling into landfills. The children (from my vantage point) ask where these things come from, and they are tacitly understanding that the "Re-USE" part of "Reduce, Re-use, Recycle" part is important too.
Fast Fashion is of course the complete mirror opposite to the younger generation (with social media pushing out fashion tips at a rate faster than ever before), so it is not all good news here. But I do believe we are in the beginnings of a recycle renaissance because of the sheer necessity to just simply survive.
More people are cutting CABLE TV out of their lives, to the point where even FOX NEWS is concerned. It is only a matter of time before "going to the library to check out the DVD box sets" will replace Netflix, HBO, Disney Plus, and others. If not, the "VHS tips/tricks" of the 90's will come back, but this time with private servers, 1080/4k televisions, and networked intranet hard drives.
Oh, and the fact that "depression era recipes" like "how to cook 10 tasty dishes with rice and beans" is making a comeback means we are just speed running the 1920's, but at the same time it is going back to the roots of cooking healthier and basic proteins/carbohydrates too. Except this time we have far more convenient pressure cookers and other gadgets (which are sadly all too affordable due to where they are manufactured, but I digress) that help ease the cooking process.
And as far as entertainment goes, I find myself borrowing/lending more often. I am going to ask my old Mentor to see if he is willing to lend me a skateboard (his son is a trainer/coach/instructor). Why pick up skateboarding? Because that is what middle-age fathers do! But on a serious note, I believe that entertainment will be going back to its roots as well; which of course center around more primitive luxuries (like going to a friend's house to watch the latest sportsball). What I am trying to say is people will find a way to entertain themselves despite the massive downside/dopamine-reduction.
So as cheerful and as positive as I try to make this out to be, I feel that it is our duty as Americans to be as spiteful as possible, salut with our center finger, and relish in the great satisfaction that subscription services will die as they attempt to strangle the last of our pennies from our overtapped wallets. If the only logical choice is to trim the fat, Americans will always find new sources of free fat.
P.S. As for our digital access (not belongings, since the digital files DO NOT BELONG TO US), in the podcast it was already discussed on how to "preserve them" outside the reach of the internet. Just as farmers are hacking their John Deere Trackers to repair them (which was finally put through the courts, and the legal system admonished corporate sleaziness of locking their systems), we Americans can be very crafty in getting what we want. And if they make it difficult, the "Free Market" will have a "Grey Market" competitor. If they make it illegal, well we have a darker shade of grey for that unfortunately.