"It's easy to spend all day riding unicorns whose most magical property is their ability to combine high valuations with persistently negative earnings—something I've pointed out before. If you wake up on a Casper mattress, work out with a Peloton before breakfast, Uber to your desk at a WeWork, order DoorDash for lunch, take a Lyft home, and get dinner through Postmates, you've interacted with seven companies that will collectively lose nearly $14 billion this year. If you use Lime scooters to bop around the city, download Wag to walk your dog, and sign up for Blue Apron to make a meal, that's three more brands that have never record a dime in earnings"
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/say-goodbye-millennial-urban-lifestyle/599839/
(For a decade or more, I said the same thing about Amazon.)
Yes, but Amazon had only about 2 years of big losses
https://qz.com/1196256/it-took-amazon-amzn-14-years-to-make-as-much-net-profit-as-it-did-in-the-fourth-quarter-of-2017/
And some of the lower profits in recent years have, essentially, been tax dodges. Uber is different. They are burning through an underpaid labor force and they can't afford to give them raises. I think they were betting on self-driving cars coming online earlier and saving them. And Blue Apron? I mean seriously?
Caspar and Peloton I could see scaling. WeWork could have worked as a real estate play, much like a modern ski area is mostly about real estate plays, not about making money off actual skiing.
Everyone's ordering delivery, but apps aren't making money | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/everyones-ordering-delivery-but-apps-arent-making-money/
Instacart Will Reportedly Make $10M Net Profit in April Due to Coronavirus Sales Boost
https://www.eater.com/2020/4/28/21239754/instacart-brings-in-10-million-profit-in-april-coronavirus-deliveries
Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/technology/farewell-millennial-lifestyle-subsidy.html
So it happened...
>easy to spend all day riding unicorns whose most magical property is their ability to combine high valuations with persistently negative earnings
Millennials mourn days of cheap Seamless, Ubers, Airbnb
https://nypost.com/2022/04/21/millennials-mourn-days-of-cheap-seamless-ubers-airbnb/
I'm thinking most of us had some period where something was stupidly cheap and then went away. In my college years, it was People's Express. My first trip to Europe was $99 round trip, which was completely affordable on my minimum wage job.
A friend was the master. People's Express had you pay on the plane. During massive holiday periods, he would make reservations with no intention of traveling and then wait for them to offer round-trip vouchers to people who would volunteer to be bumped. He ended up traveling the country on the People's Express Fellowship.
It was obvious then that it could not last. I think what was different this time around is that people thought Airbnb and Uber would be cheap forever.
QuoteThe World Bank calculates there could be a "huge" 37% jump in food prices.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61171529
Pretty hard to avoid that one other than growing your own. Things have changed rapidly in the last 6-12 months, beginning with a period in late Summer when the wind wasn't blowing.
Electricity here in the UK, my original co went bust and were supplying me at 15p/kWh, I was shifted to a new supplier 2 years fixed 25p/kWh. Current variable rates are in the 30s. Gas up 50%, expected to rise again in September.
Petrol up though I don't drive, guess that'll factor into every other price though.
Council tax up 3-5% for most. Interest rates on the rise. Had overpaid my mortgage over the past 2 years but looked like the interest rate rises will cancel out any savings when remortgaging.
I'm mitigating by an investment into Ripple energy for my electricity which should bring my electricity bill down by 40%. Longer bet. Continuing to better insulate the house.
So many people are going to feel the pinch on this, especially heading into Winter. The situation here at least doesn't seem exclusive to millennials, though older generations who've paid off their house and/or have a private pension are in a much more sound position.
A good rule of thumb is that you need about 200 square feet per person for a self-sustaining garden
How Much Garden You Would Need to 100% Survive On
https://lifehacker.com/how-much-garden-you-would-need-to-100-survive-on-1848829190
>>> 200 square feet per person
IMHO that is a serious under-estimate.
'Wow': Uber chief startled by US reporter's expensive three-mile ride | Uber | The Guardian
"Wired noted that according to some reports Uber prices have risen four times faster than the rate of inflation, as the company has sought to become profitable. Uber has previously had policies which include subsidizing cheaper prices by using billions of dollars of investors' money."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/02/uber-dara-khosrowshahi-cost-ride-new-york
No more freebies: Companies crack down on customer perks and rewards
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/05/companies-crack-down-on-customer-perks-and-rewards-like-airline-miles.html
>Uber chief startled by US reporter's expensive three-mile ride
Pair that with:
Uber is now a profitable, cash-generating machine
https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/01/uber-profitable-earnings-analysis/
I didn't think they'd be profitable until robotaxis took over.
side note: The gig economy subredits are full of screenshots showing Uber and other apps keeping more than half the ride fee. Oof!
Turns out the so-called Urban Millennial Subsidy was small compared to the AI Subsidy
https://x.com/DKThomp/status/1996613728754975184
QuoteIf it felt like Uber was charging higher fees, then there's your data to back up your feels. What did you think profitability meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays?
Accompanied by charts and graphs - first you have to get past the charts on Hormuz and on AI
https://www.a16z.news/p/charts-of-the-week-monitoring-the
This old thread seemed like a good place to put this.
AI is getting pricey, but relief is coming, but not for you
https://www.theregister.com/ai-ml/2026/05/21/ai-is-getting-pricey-but-relief-is-coming-but-not-for-you/5244358
(Knowing this was bound to come, I've been sandbagging tokens in 1min.ai)
+
Your AI addiction is their opportunity
One detail that always surprises me in these articles is not that Cloudflare is laying off 1100 employees, but that Cloudflare HAS 1100 employees.
So many of these little startups got big fast.
Sticker shock and the Florida lawsuit might prick the bubble.
AI costs how much? GitHub Copilot users react to new usage-based pricing system. - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/ai-costs-how-much-github-copilot-users-react-to-new-usage-based-pricing-system/
+
/r is unhappy
GitHubCopilot
https://old.reddit.com/r/GithubCopilot/
++
Some are moving to this one, saying their initial trials had very good results
Token Plan - MiniMax API Platform
https://platform.minimax.io/subscribe/token-plan?tab=individual__monthly
/r says
closely related, methinks
Microsoft Wants to 'Make People Addicted' to its New AI Assistant, Internal Documents Reveal
https://www.404media.co/microsoft-wants-to-make-people-addicted-to-scout-its-new-ai-assistant-internal-documents-reveal/
Lots of licenses being cancelled. I'm seeing these stories everywhere.
One programmer ran up $150,000 in compute charges in a month. He's doing the work of six at the cost of seven.
Apple TV now costs $14.99 a month after its fourth price hike in four years | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/tech/986130/apple-tv-plus-price-hike
> Apple TV
We got hooked on Ted Lasso while visiting family. We thought about getting Apple TV: "It's only $9.95." Yes, in theory I am intellectually smart enough to know that is actually "ten dollars" but I'm not emotionally smart enough to know that. But I'm also easily distracted, so it didn't happen.
But somehow, $14.99, which I am both intellectually and emotionally smart enough to think of as "fifteen dollars," suddenly feels like more than I want to spend to see how Shrinking ends.
The point being, there is a price point where people don't really think about it. $1/mo and I would sign up for almost anything that gave me even the slightest marginal utility. $5/mo and I want to get something for it but not much. $10/mo and I start thinking about value relative to other things. Over $20/mo and I start putting it in the context of airline tickets or new skis and then it becomes REALLY hard for a streaming company to create a value proposition that gets me to pull the trigger.
All of which makes me wonder - if everyone has to raise prices, do we get into a death spiral where declining revenues mean that the only path to profitability is to raise prices even more?
This is basically what has been happening with satellite TV and geosynchronous satellite internet. They can only survive because they've already put their multi-million dollar birds in space and they just aren't replacing them as they die. The Hughesnet installer told us that a lot of people had loss access because one of the transceivers died and there was no plan to replace it. They are just running out the clock.
But a lot of these Millennial Lifestyle services can't run out the clock.
>there is a price point where people don't really think about it
Debbie says it's $19.95 for physical products. $14.95 for digital.
There was once a question on WmW? Here? that asked what was your limit for impulse purchases.
So, what's your limit for impulse purchases?
> impulse
I'm the worst person to ask. I am honestly trying to become more of an impulse buyer, but by default I am so not an impulse buyer. I don't even impulse "buy" when it is free if it's a physical good. By default, I am an impulse discarder, but my wife has trained me out of that. Many people get this emotional boost from buying something. I get an emotional boost from filling a garbage bag and donating the stuff or throwing it away.
This summer I did this thing where I won a fairly pricy shirt ($95 full retail)
https://www.royalrobbins.com/us/en-us/men/tops/shirts-flannels/ms-camino-pucker-ss
I refused the shirt, because I have enough similar shirts. People got really consternated about it so I finally took one in my wife's size.
I do get a boost when I buy something, then use it and it works really well. So I bought a new single set of cams for climbing ($350) which seemed a bit extravagant since I had three sets that were perfectly functional (and typically climb with a double set). I climbed with them once and decided I genuinely liked them better than the older model, so I impulse purchased a second set.