Casual Conversation

If you really understand what a system based on eternal, infinite growth means, that is the only logical consequence.

Video games

Very cheap tho.

Just grab a trusty VPN for like as low as $5 a month (Mullvad, IVPN, Proton) and head over to !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Live Free on the High Seas! 🏴‍☠️

Over the last few years I've been slowly moving to cheaper/free hobbies, I think part of the reason I'm enjoying them is because they're free, like I can go for a run for nothing apart from some shoes. I like that there's no real upkeep and if my local gym shuts down or whatever I can still just go for a run.

The same thing goes for software, I've started caring more about open source software recently, not just because of the privacy benefits but because it's free! And again with independence, if a paid service shuts down I can't use that software anymore, with open source, you have the code, you can just download it and you've got it, forever.

Yup, just disengage from consumerism. Buy what you need, make what you can. Spend your free time in nature, at a park, or at the library.

I have to constantly tell my wife, we aren't required to spend money on the weekend to have fun. The kids have just as much fun at the nice park 20 minutes from our house as they do at the movies or great America, only the park is free, and gets them to exercise and socialize.

My dad has always described the US as the land of bilk and money.

Since I moved here ~a decade ago, I've been constantly shocked at the background level of cheating others that goes on. I definitely agree that it's worse now, but we've been a nation of two-bit grifters since we've been a nation.

I feel so similarly. It feels so insidious and normalised. I’ve been engaging more with anti-consumerist, minimalist, repair and mend etc. spaces online, and that’s helped me feel more hopeful. There are like-minded people out there! My latest obsession has been moving away from big tech because I’m fed up with having my privacy invaded just so I can be sold more useless crap.

You’re not alone in feeling this way. As antimonopoly activist Matt Stoller puts it, Economic Termites Are Everywhere.

Yeah this is part of why I pretty much am not doing anything that is not absolutely necessary at this point. Its like fuck it all.

I can't stand how many financial services there are advertised during podcasts. You're to overwhelmed to know what you spend money on? Spend money on us to tell you what you waste money on!

We’ve worked hard at maximizing the money we spend. We get a museum membership for a birthday every year and then use the passport program to visit other museums for free. Plus the membership does swaps occasionally so sometimes we get a month of the botanical gardens, aquarium, or zoo for free too. One of my hobbies is amusement parks, which is obviously expensive, but I get passes that work for many different parks and we always pack snacks and meals. We’ve also been spending a lot of time at playgrounds too. We invite a whole playgroup and whoever can make it will come and it’s a lot of fun. We try to limit our consumerism because it’s definitely everywhere

Yup it’s a conscious decision to not spend. I don’t do it for financial reasons ( it helps my savings) but I’m very conscious of who gets my money. I work hard for it. I am not gonna be told by adverts to buy crap I don’t need or made to feel I need to do something to enjoy myself.

I am really stepping up to recycling and buying used in an effort to under consume. Enjoy your garden. Sail the seas. Make and effort to cook food I really want. Bulk buy…the things I really need. I question so much.

Insta drives me crazy. I love the inspiration but the product placement and the telling you about their new tool (which likely already exists) or pushing a book, or a service etc I find it trashy and cheap. Turns me right off people.

I'm not disagreeing, but is being "overly expensive" really a grift, in and of itself?

It does honestly seem like so many products and services are grifts these days, though.

You go to buy a new bottle of ketchup from the store. The package is identical, same size, same label. But you get it home and just as you're squeezing the last watery ooze from the old bottle, you notice that the new bottle is 38 oz instead of 40 oz, and then you notice that water is now the top ingredient in the new formula. To me, that's a grift.

Or, you pay nearly $1,000 a month for "health insurance" and then when you go to use it, this is out of network so you are on the hook 100%, that's not covered because [some shitty excuse in the fine print], this is covered but you're still on the hook for 20% of the over inflated insurance price such that it's basically the same cost they'd charge you if you paid cash and didn't go through insurance, oh, and by the way you can cancel but you won't be allowed to buy a different plan until the open enrollment period that's months away. To me, that's a grift.

Sign up for our service that offers you unlimited free deliveries to your home and all these other wonderful perks like these two amazing streaming services and more! Except they stop delivering to your address after a few months because you're no longer considered in their coverage area, and the streaming services both have ads, and pretty much every other "perk" is riddled with similar fine print bullshit that basically negates the benefits of the perk. Now that's a grift to me.

Okay, I'll stop there, but you better damn well believe I could go on and on with my complaints about all the grifting going on.

Not everything is a grift these days. if you give me your cc # I can prove it for you.

Maybe in the US. I don't buy much, but when I do I give it great consideration. Once you move past all the popular and hyped stuff, there are great products and services.

If vendors scream in your face, they're usually not worth your time. If something is very popular it's usually overpriced.

colonizer culture is vapid and only there to drain your resources upward to the oligarchs

Yep

It has been that way since the start of capitalism; the only difference is that people are much better at it than ever