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| ▲ | doctorwho42 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Lower cost of living and higher incomes when compared to purchasing power of a dollar. | | |
| ▲ | armchairhacker 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Do you have sources? Because my understanding is that medium income/inflation increased | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That and also people weren't paying for Netflix, Disney+, PlayStation online, ChatGPT+, etc Edit: Also people were having more kids back then and earlier in life, so they had less time for hobbies and "finding one's self", they'd be busy with their kids and work. The bored DINKS with free time looking for hobbies is a relatively recent phenomenon in western societies (10-15 years). | | |
| ▲ | ninth_ant 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > That and also people weren't paying for Netflix, Disney+, PlayStation online, ChatGPT+, etc Its disingenuous to describe those new expenses without considering those that largely have been replaced. It used to be normal to pay for cable TV which was outrageously expensive. They used to go to movie theatres on a regular basis, and collect physical media for movies and music and games and tv. Etc. | | |
| ▲ | ghaff an hour ago | parent [-] | | And pay $1 a minute for long distance and even not so long distance calls. Not sure how everything balances out inflation and function adjusted but not convinced entertainment is broadly more expensive these days. |
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| ▲ | simianparrot 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Nobody needs to pay for any of that | | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Says who? Please define your definition of the word "needs" here in this context. With this logic, nobody also "needs" to buy a Ford F-250 Super Duty, a MacBook Pro M5, an RTX 5090, a recreational boat, drink Starbucks daily, etc if your definition of "needs" is just limited to day survival meaning just providing food and shelter but nothing more, and yet people buy them anyway, because it's entertainment, not because they need them to survive. People will still want escapism and entertainment ESPECIALLY when their lives suck, like in times of economic depression, be it cigarettes, booze, junk food, porn, games, gambling, movies and TV shows, etc, even if you think people don't "need" them. This is how people function. It's scientifically documented. | | |
| ▲ | dgellow 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | What a stretch to go from cars and luxury laptop to daily survival |
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| ▲ | nickthegreek 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | People were paying $150/mo cable bill. | | |
| ▲ | AlexandrB 5 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Don't forget that's $150/month in 90s dollars! It's like having a $300/month subscription to streaming services today. |
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| ▲ | grahamburger 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In the 90s, my parents made at least 50% more than I do (for similar work, not inflation adjusted), bought a house almost twice as big as mine in a nicer area for 25% less than mine, and traveled internationally for what it costs me to take my kids camping. Well, maybe that last one is a slight exaggeration, but the rest isn't. | | |
| ▲ | irishcoffee 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I typed out a very snarky response which was in complete agreement with your point, and erased it. You're right. The economy is... fucked. The "great wealth transfer" will be vacuumed up quickly, and it'll get worse. World of Warcraft (of all things) had this kind of issue with stats and damage numbers getting into the absurd range, so they did a stat crunch. We need a global stat crunch. |
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| ▲ | opto 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Well in the 90s and early 2000s you really could make money as a small local artist in a niche genre. Think of the people who could cut 500 white labels of their new UK Garage tune and reasonably expect to sell them from the back of their car and turn a decent profit on it. The ability to be a small time artist, musician, etc and live in the 90s depended on the combined effects of technology and local organisations. You could play on pirate radio, you could go on benefits without too much hassle, you could stay at a squat, you could make your own physical products cheaply, there were lots of venues to play at, you could sell your products for cash and keep it. The internet makes the distribution of music files cheap and easy, but combined with the increased technologising of society, the rest of the infrastructure that made the 90s a time where culture felt like it was on an e-rush with everyone else have fallen apart. | | |
| ▲ | Folcon 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Can we actually separate distribution from sharing? I notice that all the advertising examples you listed are about spending time and not money, I'm wondering if there's something there? |
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| ▲ | dgellow 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Based on my lived experience people were complaining the same way | |
| ▲ | ModernMech 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Flea markets. Lol but I went to a flea market the other day with $100 thinking that was going to go far — I managed to buy one jacket for $80. So… I dunno. | | |
| ▲ | mjhay 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Thrift and vintage stores have been pivoting to the premium consumer as well. | | | |
| ▲ | geodel 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well, you got authentic experience that most of us only get to see on Hallmark TV :) |
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| “You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don't like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me, buddy, you've got nothing to apologize for.” - An older neighbor counseling the has-things-relatively-great-but-unhappy-anyway protagonist in Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road |
| That's why 'fun on the internet' was, always has been, is, and always will be a hobby, not a job. If you do things for money, you optimize not for fun, but for return of (time) investment. Which is only fun if you have other issues. |
