Economy that feel mass-produced and empty?

[Fiatless]

What you're feeling is what I'm feeling as well. Everything's fake. Food, the Internet, the "Science", the media, the money, the values. What we are living is the rise of some sort of nihilism. Comfort has made everyone obedient. Very few people see purpose in their lives, I believe. Very few people believe in God, or find purpose in religion. There's no masculinity. Everything is designed to keep you exhausted enough to feel somewhat comfortable but not exhausted enough to rebel.

This is the result of fiat money. Fiat has completely corrupted the time preference of individuals. All the things I've mentioned have a direct connection with your desire to discount the present for the future. If people don't prioritize their future, the entire structure of civilization becomes sick.

Let me add that people are also fake. We now see people living different lives on the internet and real world. They pretend they are superhumans on the internet while they die in silence in their closet. Unfortunately, young people are now copying the lifestyle of the strangers they meet on the internet.

The purpose of most people now is survival and they feel okay when they get basic needs. The days when you dream to contribute positively to society are gone. Now you just want to survive. 

[Alpha Marine]

The only reason life doesn't have much meaning anymore is that we neglect the actual thing that makes life have meaning, and that is people, our loved ones. People used to grow up together and still have a healthy relationship when they have their own families. They get excited to spend time together or even just see each other. The system didn't change; people just became more awful than they used to be and stopped caring for their loved ones.
The only kind of system I can blame for this is inflation. Now you need to have a reasonable amount of money to enjoy the quality of life, especially in third-world countries. Because of this, all people care about is working and money.
Quality things still exist, but they're expensive. You want a meal made by hand? A shoe made by hand? A wristwatch or ring made by hand, where you can see and feel every touch? You can get it, but it will cost you. They are expensive. That is why there is mass production, so that those who can't afford the expensive ones will be able to afford the lower quality. 

We are all statistics, is a good reason to hate the system we live. This is why some people go to arts route, because they want to be immortals. Write a book so good that, even after you die, everyone keeps talking about it, so you do not become a statistic.

My personal opinion here, I feel like that is something that is overrated. Even if people talk about you every day when you're gone, it means nothing to you when you're dead. You literary do not care.
I don't think the reason people pursue art or invention is so they can be remembered when they're dead. They just pursued what they're good at and an idea they had in their head.
I doubt the motive behind William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was so that he wouldn't become a statistic and have his name on people's lips 400 years into the future.  Or Thomas Edison, when he and others made the light bulb. Neither did Satoshi when he created Bitcoin.
They just had an idea in their head, and they pursued it. Many people do very significant things that most people don't know about. If I ask some people to name people who contributed to the invention of wifi, many people won't know, but this is a technology that we will use for the rest of our lives.

So the motive of people who want to do things that would be used for centuries isn't so they don't become statistics, or so people will continue to talk about them. They just had a dream, an idea and pursued it at all costs.
And one way or the other, everybody is a statistic.

[Creeper0]

The effect of inflation is working behind the increase in prices and even after the increase in prices, the dishonest plan or attitude of the producers is working behind the decrease in the quality of the products. We are buying products at higher prices than before but the products are not satisfactory, very low quality products. For high quality products we have to go to high-rise markets and the products have become associated with luxury life. Mainly due to the increase in dishonest producers and inflation, we are not getting good products even at higher prices.

[Ultegra134]

Do you know what happens when you make things outside of factories that have high-scale and efficient processes? The price of everything goes up even more. This is one of the basic lessons of economics, so I have no idea what you are talking about. Without mass-scale farming and food factories, there would be a famine-level crises. People like you would complain yet again and probably even harder as now you would be starving. So how about you start using your brain first before writing generic junk here? You can't have both, you can pick one of these two:

1) Mass production in factories and low prices (current setup).
2) Small scale production, preferable without big factories, and high prices.

Many of the people who write in this section don't know anything at all about economics and markets. Somehow they believe that prices must stay constant or that they must decrease because of some random thing.  

Yeah and who is at fault here? The people making these products or the people buying them?   Of course it is the buyers, and you are one of them that is why you run away towards blaming someone else for your own faults. As long as there is a buyer, there will be a seller. It is the basics, come on go read Economics for Dummies. That's probably your limit anyway.

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I know a lot more about economics than you do, and I'm not complaining but stating what's happening and why. You still decide to bitch about it and be offensive towards others for no apparent reason. You're so arrogant that you believe that you're smarter than everyone else. I'm perfectly aware of how economies of scale work and I don't have to prove anything to you. I don't understand why you're being so offensive to others in a public forum and you honestly think it'll get you anywhere.

[Cheema02]

Consistency is definitely cheaper. By logic let me explain this, why do you think McDonalds is cheaper than a luxury restaurant? You think the only reason is because of the cut of the meat? Or the quality of the ingredients? I can tell you, if you give a Michelin star chef the same exact ingredients in a McDonalds kitchen, they will make something a lot more Avangarde and expensive, with literally same things.

However, the reason why it's so cheap at one place and others are expensive is the consistency, you make 1000 same burgers a day, instead of 4 very high quality one, and that is why you end up with cheaper result. Mass production makes things cheaper, shirts, drinks, meals, everything in your life, if it wasn't mass produced and soulless, then it would be more expensive.

Yes, you are right and give a very solid example of McDonald's to explain to make the unique products for specific people and make much more profit as compared to normal products. The reason behind low prices of products is not only low quality of ingredients it also includes consistent and large scale production. Obviously when a firm produces identical products everyday then the cost of per unit decreases automatically. On the other hand luxury restaurants think differently about their customers and focus on Unique and personalized products even with the similar raw materials so obviously the product itself increases its cost.

We even give the same material to a Michelin star chef in a fast food kitchen he makes the unique product as compared to normal stuff so its product still has more worth than the normal one. And the same logic applies for clothes and other daily routine life stuff. So the learning point is that consistent and cheap price products have less worth than the unique and personalized products because its specific for some ultra high rich people who paid for that product much more than the normal one

[slapper]

People don't care about the process, if they see the result is good enough like human made, they will choose the shortcut as long as they can save cost and time.

For now there are many foods are mass produced by machine, which they produce sausage, canned food, snacks etc. We can easily know what food is mass produced and what food doesn't. However, there have been few restaurant are using robot to cook for them, which mean if we eat in that restaurant, we're eat mass produced food, not cooked by human.

I understand your logic but I am not sure it is totally true. Yes, people choose shortcuts. Yes, cost and time matter. But I think you are describing what people do, if they have no other choice, and not what people want.

Mass-produced food won on grounds of cheapness and availability. Not because people liked anyway. If you give someone a choice between a factory sausage and one made by a local butcher at the same price most will choose the local. The shortcut wins when it's the only realistic option, but not because people love it.

And here comes the thing about robots restaurants. Right now it is new therefore people are curious. But what happens in the next five years when every cheap restaurant has robots and the food all tastes the same everywhere? I think there will be a feeling that something is missing. Not in their stomach, but in some other place. A sort of empty that is not easily put into words.

Yes, I've experienced the same feeling and I still do. I don't know if there's a system actually controlling our lives and consumption, but it certainly exists, whether by design or mere coincidence.

On one hand, the government controls our lives, and on the other hand, there's what we might call consumer culture, which has also come to control our lives. I mean the sheer volume of these trivial things we've become addicted to because of modern culture, even though we don't really need them.

The result is that money keeps circulating in the same vicious cycle. They take back what they give you one way or another, as the saying goes, "They give with one hand and take with the other!"

Good to see you again yhiaali3.

Whether this system is designed or simply evolved in this manner, the effect is the same to the ordinary people. You work, you earn, you spend and somehow at the end of the month there is nothing left. The cycle is closed and you start again.

What I keep thinking about is what you said about addiction to trivial things. I agree it exists. But I also wonder how much of it is really our choice and how much of it is just the environment we live in. When everything around you is structured in such a way that spending is easy and saving difficult, even a disciplined person has a struggle. The system does not have to control you directly. It just needs to make the path of least resistance lean to spending.

Consistency is definitely cheaper. By logic let me explain this, why do you think McDonalds is cheaper than a luxury restaurant? You think the only reason is because of the cut of the meat? Or the quality of the ingredients? I can tell you, if you give a Michelin star chef the same exact ingredients in a McDonalds kitchen, they will make something a lot more Avangarde and expensive, with literally same things.

However, the reason why it's so cheap at one place and others are expensive is the consistency, you make 1000 same burgers a day, instead of 4 very high quality one, and that is why you end up with cheaper result. Mass production makes things cheaper, shirts, drinks, meals, everything in your life, if it wasn't mass produced and soulless, then it would be more expensive.

If every burger or shirt was a one off art piece, 90% of people would be priced out completely.

But I think you're talking about how the system used to feel and not about how it currently feels to a lot of people.

The old deal was simple: agree to some "soullessness" and you get a lot less money. Today we're getting a different picture. A lot of products are still mass produced, still standardized, still built around cheap labor and repetition - but the price tag has climbed into "this hurts my budget" territory. So regular people are asking: if I'm still getting the industrial, why am I paying something closer to the artisan price.

On top of that, consistency doesn't necessarily mean "cheap" in practice. It simply means that the company can produce cheaply. Whether that becomes lower prices for you, or higher margins for them, that's a power and profit question, it's not just a production question.

What you're feeling is what I'm feeling as well. Everything's fake. Food, the Internet, the "Science", the media, the money, the values. What we are living is the rise of some sort of nihilism. Comfort has made everyone obedient. Very few people see purpose in their lives, I believe. Very few people believe in God, or find purpose in religion. There's no masculinity. Everything is designed to keep you exhausted enough to feel somewhat comfortable but not exhausted enough to rebel.

This is the result of fiat money. Fiat has completely corrupted the time preference of individuals. All the things I've mentioned have a direct connection with your desire to discount the present for the future. If people don't prioritize their future, the entire structure of civilization becomes sick.

At the time I wrote the post I was largely describing the surface: prices up, quality down, people secretly averting from things that seem mass produced and empty. You're projecting on the engine under the hood: If money is itself fake and melting away constantly, people stop planning ahead and start grabbing the comfort that they can right now.

That fits what I see. If your savings lose value every year then "long term" starts to look like a bad joke. If the system rewards short-term consumption and passive obedience, why invest in skills, community or family? It's easier to scroll, order food and accept a life that's "comfortable enough" not to snap.

Where I'm a little softer than you is on "everything is fake" part. I think that there are still real pockets of meaning: small groups, working honest people, sentiments to work in order to build something strong even inside this broken environment. But I concur the default position of the current system is to push people towards nihilism: no God, no purpose, no future, just "don't rock the boat."

[yhiaali3]

Yes, I've experienced the same feeling and I still do. I don't know if there's a system actually controlling our lives and consumption, but it certainly exists, whether by design or mere coincidence.

On one hand, the government controls our lives, and on the other hand, there's what we might call consumer culture, which has also come to control our lives. I mean the sheer volume of these trivial things we've become addicted to because of modern culture, even though we don't really need them.

The result is that money keeps circulating in the same vicious cycle. They take back what they give you one way or another, as the saying goes, "They give with one hand and take with the other!"

Good to see you again yhiaali3.

Whether this system is designed or simply evolved in this manner, the effect is the same to the ordinary people. You work, you earn, you spend and somehow at the end of the month there is nothing left. The cycle is closed and you start again.

What I keep thinking about is what you said about addiction to trivial things. I agree it exists. But I also wonder how much of it is really our choice and how much of it is just the environment we live in. When everything around you is structured in such a way that spending is easy and saving difficult, even a disciplined person has a struggle. The system does not have to control you directly. It just needs to make the path of least resistance lean to spending.

Me too, thank you for your kindness.
In fact, the environment plays a big role in this culture. For example, here in my community or in urban communities in general (I think it also exists in many communities), people buy things they don't really need, but they are part of the community culture that they are used to and that have become an essential part of their lives, such as many foods, drinks, entertainment items, and so on.

While we see that rural or less urbanized communities do without many of these things and rely on simple things and products that they make in a simple way or from the products of the land and their domesticated animals, therefore their need for money is much less than that of urban communities.

[imthegreat]

There is a feeling that I keep seeing and I want to know if it is just me or if other people are feeling it too. Difficult to describe but I will try. Many things in daily life seem now to have been made by a system rather than a person. Food that looks the same everywhere. Content online that seems generated and hollow. Products are cheap but fast breaks. Efficient but cold services, Everything optimized to get faster, cheaper, but sometime along the way it did lose something that was human.

I believe this associates to how people are feeling about the economy right now. Prices increase but quality decreases. You pay more but you feel you get less for it. And it is not just about money. It is about the value in the deeper sense of the word. When you are working hard and spending your money on something, you want it to feel real. You want to feel like your money purchased something where there is some care behind it. But more and more, things seem to be empty. Like you are just a number passing through a system meant to squeeze out of you as efficiently as possible.

I watched documentaries about mass production in China and India, and I didn't like the conditions these people work in at all. They're always terrible, from safety and hygiene perspectives to long hours and lack of lunch. Now, when I see cheap goods from China, I'm reminded of images of tired people huddled together in cramped, poorly ventilated spaces. Their sad faces and tired eyes. Unfortunately, this is the best work they can find, and they're often trying to at least give their children a better future. I hope this phenomenon will become less common in the future..

[bubilas]

There is a feeling that I keep seeing and I want to know if it is just me or if other people are feeling it too. Difficult to describe but I will try. Many things in daily life seem now to have been made by a system rather than a person. Food that looks the same everywhere. Content online that seems generated and hollow. Products are cheap but fast breaks. Efficient but cold services, Everything optimized to get faster, cheaper, but sometime along the way it did lose something that was human.

I believe this associates to how people are feeling about the economy right now. Prices increase but quality decreases. You pay more but you feel you get less for it. And it is not just about money. It is about the value in the deeper sense of the word. When you are working hard and spending your money on something, you want it to feel real. You want to feel like your money purchased something where there is some care behind it. But more and more, things seem to be empty. Like you are just a number passing through a system meant to squeeze out of you as efficiently as possible.

I watched documentaries about mass production in China and India, and I didn't like the conditions these people work in at all. They're always terrible, from safety and hygiene perspectives to long hours and lack of lunch. Now, when I see cheap goods from China, I'm reminded of images of tired people huddled together in cramped, poorly ventilated spaces. Their sad faces and tired eyes. Unfortunately, this is the best work they can find, and they're often trying to at least give their children a better future. I hope this phenomenon will become less common in the future..

This is the policy of large corporations and manufacturers in Europe and the United States, which involves moving assembly and manufacturing facilities outside the country in order to obtain cheap labor. Many accidents at such factories are already known. I don't remember exactly, but there was information from India that they were making clothes there for some famous brand—Zara or something like that—and as a result, the building, which was old, collapsed on the workers. They all knew about the crack in the concrete, but their manager was in a hurry and rushed them to place orders for shipment.

[Bitcoin Smith]

~
This is the policy of large corporations and manufacturers in Europe and the United States, which involves moving assembly and manufacturing facilities outside the country in order to obtain cheap labor. Many accidents at such factories are already known. I don't remember exactly, but there was information from India that they were making clothes there for some famous brand—Zara or something like that—and as a result, the building, which was old, collapsed on the workers. They all knew about the crack in the concrete, but their manager was in a hurry and rushed them to place orders for shipment.

Western media always shows the worst side of India for whatever reason.

In India the high population is what makes the labor economy very cheap that helps with the production of many international brands and export to other countries. Recently Apple also moved their manufacturing due to the US china tariff war, and if the working condition is really bad then I doubt Apple would have done that.

While the existing manufacturing like textiles, steel and others should be supervised and need approval but India is a country where you can bribe anyone and get approval for anything that is how these substandard places are still operating even if it is prohibited by the laws.

[Satofan44]

I know a lot more about economics than you do, and I'm not complaining but stating what's happening and why. You still decide to bitch about it and be offensive towards others for no apparent reason. You're so arrogant that you believe that you're smarter than everyone else. I'm perfectly aware of how economies of scale work and I don't have to prove anything to you. I don't understand why you're being so offensive to others in a public forum and you honestly think it'll get you anywhere.

Repeating phrases you have seen somewhere does not mean you know anything about anything my dear. If you are really from Greece that does explain things right away, you are just a fake Turk after all.  

I understand your logic but I am not sure it is totally true. Yes, people choose shortcuts. Yes, cost and time matter. But I think you are describing what people do, if they have no other choice, and not what people want.

Mass-produced food won on grounds of cheapness and availability. Not because people liked anyway. If you give someone a choice between a factory sausage and one made by a local butcher at the same price most will choose the local. The shortcut wins when it's the only realistic option, but not because people love it.

No, you are wrong here by focusing on the most poor people where general statements should be done on the average which is the middle class. Most of these people have other choices, they are just making bad choices. How much money is going away into drinking, smoking, drugs, gambling addiction, countless streaming services? There are people that pay hundreds of dollars in subscriptions per month, they don't even use most of them. This means that they have money, and anyway they have the choice to acquire more money. Instead they are forgoing delaying gratification and choosing better options for the sake of instant gratification and using low quality products.

And here comes the thing about robots restaurants. Right now it is new therefore people are curious. But what happens in the next five years when every cheap restaurant has robots and the food all tastes the same everywhere? I think there will be a feeling that something is missing. Not in their stomach, but in some other place. A sort of empty that is not easily put into words.

The use of robots in restaurants won't cause the food to converge to a single taste.

What I keep thinking about is what you said about addiction to trivial things. I agree it exists. But I also wonder how much of it is really our choice and how much of it is just the environment we live in. When everything around you is structured in such a way that spending is easy and saving difficult, even a disciplined person has a struggle. The system does not have to control you directly. It just needs to make the path of least resistance lean to spending.

If the environment defines your choices then you have no free will. If you confront someone with the thought that they have no free will they will either be confused as they are unable to process the meaning of this, or they will fight you strongly even if all evidences indicates that they indeed have no free will. Breaking out of the environment is something that requires effort, skill, knowledge, wisdom. Nobody is born with this ability, but everyone is born with the ability to blame the environment for their own failure.

This is the policy of large corporations and manufacturers in Europe and the United States, which involves moving assembly and manufacturing facilities outside the country in order to obtain cheap labor. Many accidents at such factories are already known. I don't remember exactly, but there was information from India that they were making clothes there for some famous brand—Zara or something like that—and as a result, the building, which was old, collapsed on the workers. They all knew about the crack in the concrete, but their manager was in a hurry and rushed them to place orders for shipment.

Such issues are a problem of the host country in this case India. Its laws and its workforce, in this case the manager. Offshoring is not responsible for any issues relating to workplace laws in the country where the work is done.

[doomloop]

If every burger or shirt was a one off art piece, 90% of people would be priced out completely.

But I think you're talking about how the system used to feel and not about how it currently feels to a lot of people.

The old deal was simple: agree to some "soullessness" and you get a lot less money. Today we're getting a different picture. A lot of products are still mass produced, still standardized, still built around cheap labor and repetition - but the price tag has climbed into "this hurts my budget" territory. So regular people are asking: if I'm still getting the industrial, why am I paying something closer to the artisan price.

On top of that, consistency doesn't necessarily mean "cheap" in practice. It simply means that the company can produce cheaply. Whether that becomes lower prices for you, or higher margins for them, that's a power and profit question, it's not just a production question.

Unfortunately that is due to inflation, because in many nations the prices went up higher than what our salaries went up. I am making the same money I have been making for years and yet I have been paying three times the money for things, I used to be one of the richest in my friend group because I get paid in dollars but today I am the poorest, all because inflation priced me out.

The standardization of it has nothing to do with it, soulless mass produced things are still expensive to us because of how little we are paid, whereas expensive high quality stuff are at "I can't even afford it" levels now. This has nothing to do with mass production anymore and more about how inflation hurt all of us in the past five years.

[slapper]

I never felt this way until AI images and AI music appeared. Then I realized how disgusting it is, and essentially how distorted it is, a distorted deception of a distorted reality. That's why, often, when I see low-quality videos online, I'm absolutely disgusted by them, and I immediately ban such groups so I never see them again in recommendations. And there are already a huge number of them, they're literally everywhere.

And I hope that many people share this opinion, and that everyone will now value much more what they create with their own hands, rather than through disgusting AI tools.

Once you see it in AI images or AI music, it's not easy not to see it in other places: low-effort videos, copy-paste "content", products built to get clicks and not people's time. Many are saving time and money using tools that are generating more and more, faster and faster. But the person on the other side - you - is paying with your attention and your mood and not getting real value back. That is the same feeling that many people have with cheap and mass-produced services and ugly ads or food that looks okay but tastes like nothing. Lots of output, very little care.

I like that you actively block this stuff. That's a little bit of resistance already. You are treating your attention the way that you would treat your money: not giving it to people who do not respect it. Like you said, I think the next step is people putting a higher value on things that are clearly made by humans with intention, and not just "prompted into existence". That doesn't mean every use of AI is evil, but it does mean that we should hold ourselves to a similar standard: does this respect my time and my mind, or is it just trying to fill a feed...

I think about this too often lately, like in everything you buy there is a little trap you may not know
(in others, its just too evident). It is the unavoidable result of modern business education: people in business schools are taught that they should use any tricks necessary to make the company earn money, with branding, packaging, merchandising... and if other competitors do it, they must go one step further, and so on, endlessly.

When EBITDA is more important than anything else in business, you find out that large queues in hospitals may just be artificially created to make the managers earn more money, for example.

The example of the hospital is painful reading. A person who is waiting a year for a cancer treatment in somewhere in an office, someone is figuring out how that delay is helping to hit a profit number. That is not a failure of the system. That is the system functioning exactly according to design.

I think what you say about education in business is true but maybe it goes down even deeper. It is not just that people are taught to make as much money as possible. It is that they are trained to perceive everything as a number initially and human the second time. A patient becomes a "case". A worker becomes a "resource". A customer is converted into a "conversion rate". Once you learn to see people as data points it becomes very easy to make decisions that hurt them. You are not hurting a person. You are merely optimizing a measure.

There is a feeling that I keep seeing and I want to know if it is just me or if other people are feeling it too. Difficult to describe but I will try. Many things in daily life seem now to have been made by a system rather than a person. Food that looks the same everywhere. Content online that seems generated and hollow. Products are cheap but fast breaks. Efficient but cold services, Everything optimized to get faster, cheaper, but sometime along the way it did lose something that was human.

I believe this associates to how people are feeling about the economy right now. Prices increase but quality decreases. You pay more but you feel you get less for it.

That does not make sense. You claim that products are cheap, production is efficient and then you claim that you pay more. You are contradicting yourself in the basic setup of the thread. If you were trying to make well-argued perspectives on the long-term value where you are paying more in the long-term by constantly buying cheap products that break, then you would be right. However, that is not what you are doing here.

And it is not just about money. It is about the value in the deeper sense of the word. When you are working hard and spending your money on something, you want it to feel real. You want to feel like your money purchased something where there is some care behind it. But more and more, things seem to be empty. Like you are just a number passing through a system meant to squeeze out of you as efficiently as possible.

That sounds like a deep addiction to materialism and consumption. You are not supposed to derive emotional pleasure from buying anything, whether it is cheaply produced or hand-crafted. It is time to shut down the internet and go on a long detox. You are confusing the cause of your emotions. It comes from over-consumption of digital content and not from the efficiency of the economy.

I think about this too often lately, like in everything you buy there is a little trap you may not know

There were always traps, people just didn't have the information in the old days. You won't fall into traps if you spend your time doing research and analysis before you buy anything. Don't confuse laziness with an existential issue. Most people grab items in a grocery store that are completely toxic to health, they never even look at the ingredient list. They just see a nice-looking box or container and they buy it. Then they blame the manufacturer for the consequences instead of themselves.  

How many people buy overpriced junk like iPhone yearly or other things due to brand loyalty? Where is the trap? The people are the ones who are making the stupid decisions themselves, often no traps are needed at all.

Yes, I could have written better the cheap versus expensive part. What I meant is simple. Things cost less up front, but cost more in the end, because they don't last. That is not a contradiction. That is how the economy is now for most products.

But here is where I disagree with you strongly. You say that emotional dissatisfaction from buying things is just addiction and people should detox. That is easy to say. But when someone works forty, fifty hours a week and yet cannot afford things that seem solid, real, That is a rational response for a real situation. Dismissing it as weakness does not make it go away.

You also say that there are no traps, there are only lazy people. I think that is too simple. Yes, people need to do research. But companies spend billions on psychology, design and marketing for the express purpose of making research more difficult and impulse more easy. There is the ingredient list but it is meant to confuse. The cheap product is there because the good one was driven out of the market. Saying just do research ignores the fact that the game is not fair.

Personal responsibility is very real. I am not against it. But personal responsibility in a rigged environment is not the same thing as personal responsibility in a fair one. I am sure you are smart enough to see the difference. The question is do you want to?

[Satofan44]

Yes, I could have written better the cheap versus expensive part. What I meant is simple. Things cost less up front, but cost more in the end, because they don't last. That is not a contradiction. That is how the economy is now for most products.

That is absolutely true, but you are working with the assumption that most people know this and are making decisions in relation to this knowledge. The opposite is true. Most people buy constantly breaking junk, not because they can't afford better but because they want instant gratification. Affordability comes as a function of time. People used to save for a long time to buy something of extreme quality, you know like fridges of the old time? It is not like most owners considered affordability based on whether they could afford it within a month or two? The top line products of that time cost a lot of money!

But here is where I disagree with you strongly. You say that emotional dissatisfaction from buying things is just addiction and people should detox. That is easy to say. But when someone works forty, fifty hours a week and yet cannot afford things that seem solid, real, That is a rational response for a real situation.

What? It is a completely irrational response. Do you think that this is a new situation in the human history? It has been literally like this the whole time. Most of the people working most of the jobs couldn't afford anything truly significant and expensive for the time that they lived in. People's spending habits on the other hand were not like this always in human history. They were poorer, but they were more content and had better management of what they had. As I said, remember, I am focusing on a wide middle-class group that does have money to choose better. There are options to choose better, but they are not doing it. They are doing whatever mind-numbing and useless thing they could do just to avoid being mentally active, such as binge watching endless Netflix content. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Dismissing it as weakness does not make it go away.

It is weakness, even if it won't go away.  

You also say that there are no traps, there are only lazy people. I think that is too simple. Yes, people need to do research. But companies spend billions on psychology, design and marketing for the express purpose of making research more difficult and impulse more easy. There is the ingredient list but it is meant to confuse. The cheap product is there because the good one was driven out of the market. Saying just do research ignores the fact that the game is not fair.

No, that is not what I said. I said that these days, based on how people behave and conduct their lives, no traps are needed at all to manipulate them and make wrong decisions. They do it themselves all the time! Nevertheless, there are traps everywhere. Come on, how much time does an average person per day think about these topics? I can tell you it is a definite 0 minutes per day. Neither are they looking at ingredients of what they are buying, neither are they doing research on products that they are going to buy, they are not doing anything. It is easy to blame the world when you don't do anything to change your situation.

Where we can start blaming the world is once you reach a plateau. You're doing all the research, you are gathering knowledge and prioritizing delayed gratification and proper financial management -- and still things are extremely hard or impossible. At that point we can seriously put the blame on the system. If most people are not at that point, does that mean that the system is not as broken as it would be in that case? Absolutely not, both can be true. People should take responsibility first, get their act together and then tackle the problem of the system.

Personal responsibility is very real. I am not against it. But personal responsibility in a rigged environment is not the same thing as personal responsibility in a fair one. I am sure you are smart enough to see the difference. The question is do you want to?

Why my order of priorities? A good working system does not fix broken individuals. Anyway, most often the system is a reflection of its components. Diseased humans make up an even more diseased system.

[Jatiluhung]

There is a feeling that I keep seeing and I want to know if it is just me or if other people are feeling it too. Difficult to describe but I will try. Many things in daily life seem now to have been made by a system rather than a person. Food that looks the same everywhere. Content online that seems generated and hollow. Products are cheap but fast breaks. Efficient but cold services, Everything optimized to get faster, cheaper, but sometime along the way it did lose something that was human.

I believe this associates to how people are feeling about the economy right now. Prices increase but quality decreases. You pay more but you feel you get less for it. And it is not just about money. It is about the value in the deeper sense of the word. When you are working hard and spending your money on something, you want it to feel real. You want to feel like your money purchased something where there is some care behind it. But more and more, things seem to be empty. Like you are just a number passing through a system meant to squeeze out of you as efficiently as possible.

Perhaps most of us actually feel the same way as you do. However, some are aware of it and some are not. But what is clear is that we are currently stuck in a system that keeps spinning in a wheel that is actually inside a cage. We take steps and continue to work hard, but sometimes what we get is not commensurate with what we expect. And sometimes, when what we hoped for is achieved, it turns out to be not as beautiful and not as valuable as we had always thought.

The money we keep accumulating is constantly eroded by inflation. So now we are even forced to keep exchanging money for something whose value can be better maintained.
And we begin to feel that the value of the services and work we do is also starting to lose its value.

[Jateng]

There were always traps, people just didn't have the information in the old days. You won't fall into traps if you spend your time doing research and analysis before you buy anything. Don't confuse laziness with an existential issue. Most people grab items in a grocery store that are completely toxic to health, they never even look at the ingredient list. They just see a nice-looking box or container and they buy it. Then they blame the manufacturer for the consequences instead of themselves.  

How many people buy overpriced junk like iPhone yearly or other things due to brand loyalty? Where is the trap? The people are the ones who are making the stupid decisions themselves, often no traps are needed at all.

companies actively manipulate consumer choices through marketing and media influence. Big brands invest millions on advertising, especially by using famous media personalities and influencers. When people see a product by a personality they admire, it creates trust even if the product doesn’t high quality. Companies also use attractive packaging limited time offers and status based branding to convince people to buy items that often don’t match their price or quality. Many consumers wasted their money to build status image in the society. They think they are buying quality but in reality they are buying useless items or otherwise costly items. That give producer's benefit.

[Zackz5000]

In this case most persons will say that it's inflation i only thought that the high price of things and it's low quality is only in my country, huge amount of money can't buy any reasonable thing in the market. We who serves as customers are part of the reason why thing are highly expensive even with low qualities, there are people who believe that when some thing is not expensive that it won't stay long to loss value or that it's not the original. Those who is overly rich are some of the problem the poor people are facing rich folks don't price in the market what ever the seller tells them it's the price thats the amount they will purchase it then the seller will believe that everyone can afford it since one person did, but if the Government can look into these things will be normal as before low price and high quality.

[Satofan44]

There were always traps, people just didn't have the information in the old days. You won't fall into traps if you spend your time doing research and analysis before you buy anything. Don't confuse laziness with an existential issue. Most people grab items in a grocery store that are completely toxic to health, they never even look at the ingredient list. They just see a nice-looking box or container and they buy it. Then they blame the manufacturer for the consequences instead of themselves.  

How many people buy overpriced junk like iPhone yearly or other things due to brand loyalty? Where is the trap? The people are the ones who are making the stupid decisions themselves, often no traps are needed at all.

companies actively manipulate consumer choices through marketing and media influence. Big brands invest millions on advertising, especially by using famous media personalities and influencers. When people see a product by a personality they admire, it creates trust even if the product doesn’t high quality. Companies also use attractive packaging limited time offers and status based branding to convince people to buy items that often don’t match their price or quality. Many consumers wasted their money to build status image in the society. They think they are buying quality but in reality they are buying useless items or otherwise costly items. That give producer's benefit.

In the end this is always the problem of the individual, they are at fault. Those with weak and uneducated minds let themselves get manipulated by something simple as marketing.

[WillyAp]

It's why the grind feels so hollow. You're breaking your back for bread that buys less, for stuff that's literally designed to break, from systems that see you as a wallet, not a human. We're chasing value, but everything's been hollowed out. It's a vibe-deflation, for real.

Up to you to have an empty life.
People take up gardening and enjoy their life. Others like fishing, collecting stamps. There is a lot you can do to fill your life with joy.
Life is not an eternal orgasm.