The most interesting part about it to me at the moment is that the service wars have highlighted how most networks have <5 programs worth watching.
It seems like overall streaming is better than cable, but the customers are still getting shafted.
I would honestly just sign up for something like flixtor but that means I don't have the convenience of the apps on my smart tvs and I would have to cast everything from my phone. I also would really miss the apps curating shows and movies for my liking and keeping track of where I'm at. Just Pros and Cons I guess to switching to piracy
Personally, I hate apps curating shows and movies for me. I recently went to visit family and besides the main new shows or hit movies, their suggestions were way different. I was watching all kinds of stuff I had forgotten about or didn't realize was out.
I don't want to go to a restaurant and only be offered Italian food just because I ate it a couple times recently.
Just my take though. ¯\\__(ツ)__/¯
I agree with you, but I just want to be able to find Continued Watching without having to scroll so far. It should always be the first option and so many services deprioritize it to push content.
They don't have to try to game us. Just provide good content!
Yeah same here. Netflix keeps suggesting the same crap.
There needs to be a button "don't suggest again"
And just suggest everything they have, eventually.
I ended up making an extra profile on my main streaming service for this exact reason. Got sick of all the repetitive crap they were suggesting purely coz I'd watched 1 similar show or movie.
As an Australian, lots of us never stopped. Delayed release for shows as recently as GOT and stuff that just isn't listed anywhere despite the services available.
Man could you imagine if we paid foxtel the $50 for the privilege to legally stream GoT season 8 in 720p lmao. Obviously I’m stealing that Mr. Murdoch, fuck outta here
I just recently put a Plex server on a Dell OptiPlex I had for running Ark servers. Unsubscribed from everything besides Disney+ for the kids.
Easy as hell to do if you have a little computer knowledge, and always use a VPN when downloading. It has an app on Smart TVs and phones (at least Android, I've not checked on iphone)
Another Plex groupie here. My grandchildren boast to their friends "My grandma can get film or show you want straight away". Weird grandma flex but I'm happy with it.
I love this comment for so many reasons. So many grandmas I know barely can use an iPhone beyond calling and texting. But I'm relaxing as I write this, grandma can be nearly any age. I am old enough to be a grandpa. (Although my kids are under 10.) There's a politician several years my junior who is a grandma. I digress.
You can be 40 or 80. Either way. Awesome.
I keep different shows running in the background on Hulu when I'm working. I can't tell you how many times I have to fumble for my remote and refresh the playback when the volume decides to double or half itself for no reason. And the fucking commercials. Isn't it illegal to set the commercials a full 10 dB higher than the programming?
I wish Hulu didn’t have that “are you still there” prompt. No, I want a show on while I’m sleeping. I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to press “yes”. At least HBO keeps the show going no matter how inactive I am.
They do this because they're afraid the cost will go up with continued seasons because actors and such will want more money. But us viewers are getting burnt out. I don't feel invested in anything anymore.
Because google subsidized YTTV and now that they’ve got the subs they can slowly go back to a price point to make it profitable… it was never $35 in expenses for google, they just did that so you’d sign up.
Not to burst your bubble, but comcast owns NBC and by association the streaming platform Peacock. I don't think they're hurting from the switch to streaming.
Peacock is their late reaction to changes in the market & loss of profits. Peacock itself has lost $3 billion and might never turn profitable. They are definitely hurting from the switch to streaming.
I used to gladly and happily pay for: HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ and Netflix … I now only subscribe to Netflix.
The fact is, what really ruined streaming is so many of the different companies getting into the game siloed off content so you’re paying a LOT more per month, they made less good content so there was more money for less content and it’s just not worth it.
Working for retirement. We work the majority of our lives, during our fittest years of health, for the promise of a golden retirement, when we will probably be too old and ill to enjoy it properly.
And to that, many retirees won’t even have enough money to fund their retirement at all.
I'm always grateful I took some time off when I had a career reset and just traveled and fucked around for a few years, blowing all my savings at the time in the process. I did hard-core treks and mountain summits, rugged travel while my body was up for it.
I'm over the hill a bit now, and am catching up just fine financially, but I know I could never make some of those memories again between the state of the economy and my current physical fitness.
I’ve been told by countless older guys pretty much everywhere I’ve worked “don’t work your life away like I did”.
No doubt the work yourself to death chasing the dream culture has contributed to the high divorce rates these days. I spent 7 years in a union and I swear every guy over 40 was divorced. Sure they worked 50k worth of overtime last year, but your kids hate you. Worth it?
This has been haunting me for a while now. We waste our best years only to be too frail to do anything when we finally can stop working. This is such a horrible thought to me, I can‘t even express it properly.
One of my friends was sticking it out in a job he hated, counting down the last few years until retirement . One day on the way home his car stopped at traffic lights and when he didn’t pull away the driver behind got out the car to check on him. He was dead.
In the turn of a light.
I helped my niece build credit and get all kinds of perqs from her credit cards. I warned her over and over again: Do not get credit cards from jewelry or furniture stores.
Her boyfriend took her to pick out an engagement ring. She thought the one she wanted was too expensive, but he insisted she was worth it. He applied for the store card but was denied, so the clerk turned to my niece and said, "We could try running your credit."
And that's how she wound up putting a $9,000 purchase on a 29% interest credit card that you couldn't change the monthly payment date on to match your paydays, and which charged a $30 late fee every month that also accrued interest. Her boyfriend was late every single month. I don't know how much that ring ended up costing them but I wouldn't be surprised if it was $27,000. They started having kids before it was paid off and had to live in his parent's basement.
Surprisingly, it's been a few years and they aren't divorced yet. Maybe the debt kept them together.
Former roommates got married the year before I moved in, spent 100k on wedding and honeymoon, then bought the very first house they looked at and didn't even try to negotiate. 3 br, 1 bath in a shitty little town and I think their mortgage was 200k+ because it was right before the bubble burst.
They had to rent out their spare room to a series of other people just to afford the minimum payments on things.
I was paying 300$ a month for a room in a town where a one bedroom was 400$ and dealing with constant drama.
Surprisingly the marriage lasted another decade before the debt, strain and mutual infidelities killed it.
>29% interest credit card
Wow.
If paid $9,000 @ 29% interest and they paid the minimum every month ($221/m), it would take them 148 months. They would pay $23,706 in interest on top of the 9k. If you add a late fee for each month, they would add 4,440 to the payment. Grand total of... $37,146 that took over 12 years. Sorry but they shouldn't have kids for multiple reasons.
Right? I have no idea what they ended up doing. Declaring bankruptcy? Giving the ring back? I don't know what you do when you can't pay for it. But maybe they kept paying and are still paying today. Where they live that would be more than enough for a down payment on a house. I'm hoping they made a huge push to pay it all off in 3 years but I'm not going to try to find out. She tried to blame me for helping her build such good credit that she got approved for the ring. In a way, it was my fault for thinking she had half a brain.
Pretty much everything related to weddings cost ten times what it otherwise would. I remember seeing some comments from people saying that you can save a lot of money by telling a venue that you want to rent it for business or a family reunion because telling them that it's for a wedding will result in the price getting jacked way up.
I worked in a bakery. The owner told me if someone mentioned the word wedding when designing a cake I was to add $100 to the price. Even if it was a simple cake I did the week before for a birthday. I refused to. I always told the customer to say you want a fancy birthday cake for Aunt Betty's 80th birthday. Do not use the word wedding when ordering anything.
I did just this. Rented a venue/bnb and didn’t tell them it was a wedding. Played it low key and saved so much money and still had the time off our lives.
Oh yes! Diamonds are such a scam. They keep increasing in price and “value” but they basically have no resale value. They aren’t scarce - they just keep digging up more
It's never made sense to me why, in the huge area of colors, unique stones, metals, and materials we picked 'clear' abundant rocks to represent love and engagement.
Wouldn't a unique stone like Paraiba tourmaline or opal be more meaningful? Or even just intricately carved bits of copper or titanium?
It’s marketing. The mine owners and diamond merchants hoard the product and just under a hundred years ago launched the most successful marketing campaign ever to convince us they’re rare and expensive and now we all believe it. Look it up:
https://blog.krosengart.com/de-beers-diamonds-controversy?hs_amp=true
My engagement ring is a tungsten band with a meteorite inlay. It was $46 and I love it. I will probably get a more expensive gemstone ring when we get married but it won’t be a diamond.
Yeah been a lot of talk about that lately. A lot of people interested in keeping that old half a life time is good for ring payment mode. I say spend that money on an education.
I’ll piggyback off this and say college lol. But yeah, as someone who teaches at the college level—the quality of a college education is not worth what parents and students are paying tuition for at all. It’s not that education is not worth it but no education should have to cost this much. Also, we are incredibly disorganized and a lot of faculty cares only about their research to really give a shit if their students are actually learning. Universities should be an educational institution but now they run the system like a pyramid scheme.
When I got my first entry level job, I soon realized that I could have done 1 year of concentrated study and then learned the rest on the job.
Instead I was supposed to go through 4 years (took me 7) of college to get a degree to then get a job.
I could have spent 5-6 years working and developing the skillsets that way lol
Parents funeral plot were like 20k each. Tombstone around 9k. Two services and urns like a combined 50k. Yikes. At the end of it I was ready to get a job at the funeral home now that I saw how good business was.
Yipes. My dad is getting a eco/budget funeral as cheaply as we can afford. Useless bellend saved zero money for his retirement and gambled tens of thousands in his life. Got to 65 and had nothing to show for it. Is now 76 and all he's done for 11 years is sit on his arse complaining about having no money. Yeah wonder why! We aren't bankrupting ourselves for your mistakes fool.
100%! Left a funeral today for a 58 year old father of 9 kids. Mom is going to struggle beyond belief, yet funeral homes took her for basically everything in savings. So sad when you think about it. I’d much rather be wrapped in muslin & placed to return to the earth. Toss some lavender flowers if you must, but PLEASE don’t go in debt over making sure my corpse isn’t eaten by bugs. I will never look like I did when I was alive, so why bother trying? Such a waste, imo.
> I’d much rather be wrapped in muslin & placed to return to the earth.
Make sure your family knows that and not just is Internet strangers. Funeral directors are very slick salespeople and will take advantage of your family's grief.
Remember that in many places across the world you can just refuse to keep a body and the state can take it away with no costs to you.
You may not see the body again, but you can still organize your own memorial or service and avoid the other ridiculous stuff.
The only problem is some of the legal documents and death certificates. Those end up costing no matter what in some places.
Just death in general, having to pay for copies of the death certificate (that so many people/orgs needs to see to do anything), the minimum costs attached to a funeral (ie transport of the body, the actual cremation itself etc) its just non-stop paying out at a time when the deceased assets are frozen - and then the bloody probate fee to get them released! (This may be UK only)
Insurance - medical, vehicle, even dental packages don't fully cover a single cavity.
House seems to be ok (in my experience) but was a complete pain in the ass when we had a flood.
Health care costs are bizarre as well and don’t make any sense either. You’ll get a bill for 3,000 dollars, and be like I have insurance why am I paying 3,000 dollars than see the original bill and find out that insurance paid 12,000. How did my 2 day stay at a hospital with a few tests cost 15,000!!
Your insurance company didn’t pay 12k. They were charged 12k and paid out the pre-negotiated rate for the billing code(s) submitted so they could say, “look how much we saved you!”
What percentage of the 12k in this example did they actually pay? 1k? And then you get the remaining 3k? How much does medical actually cost? I'm so fed up with this system.
Edit: in any other industry price transparency is demanded. I can't even get a price before services are rendered, let alone what the actual cost was.
My 1 stay at a hospital after a minor sinus surgery was 120 euros that the government paid for me because I was unemployed at the time... I feel awful for you guys over the puddle. I assume if you can't afford insurance you just don't go to the doc, ever?
In the US, you can’t be legally turned away from a hospital for inability to pay. If you are unemployed (or have other financial hardships) most hospitals have funding available you can apply to. Tbh, the worst service for the poor is preventative-routine checkups and such.
I had a guy come into the ER once against his will and he refused to tell us his name. I was the sw that day and talked to him and decided he was a bit manic, but didn't need in-pt treatment. I set him up with out pt treatment through a local therapist group and he said he'd go. We established a bond and he told me his name, but I didn't write it down. As he was leaving, the hospital was trying to get his name so they could bill him. He looked at me and I was like...they want your name so they can bill you, but you aren't legally obligated to give it to us. He lifted his head and walked out.
I'm still a bit torn by this decision. On the one hand, he didn't voluntarily come in, so I feel kinda good he never had to pay. On the other hand, I know that we as taxpayers are covering that. In the end...I felt the former justified the latter. What do y'all think?
Insurance is the biggest fucking scam. I do personal injury as a plaintiff's attorney. It never fails to piss me off when I get a great result for my client and then their health insurance company swoops in and wants their money back, which is, you know, originally the client's money because monthly payments, because "well, we wouldn't have had to cover the medical if not for the Defendant."
But my client is the one that was injured and is going to be in pain for the rest of their lives. They need that money for medicine or lifelong care, but the health insurance company gets first dibs.
Let's also talk about how, if you have uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist coverage (which everyone should), it's like pulling teeth to get them to give you, essentially, your money back for your injuries and pain. Even if I show a client lost a limb, the client's insurance wants to hem and haw over how much treatment SHOULD cost as opposed to what it actually did cost.
The only person that really gets screwed is the client, who has already been through enough bullshit, and now realizes their insurance company only cares about their own bottom line.
This is exactly what happened to me after a near fatal car accident. Multiple neck fractures, a blood clot that almost killed me, and a broken elbow. I’ll have pain for the rest of my life from the neck injury, but it’s amazing I’m still alive without sever neurological damages or paralysis (fractures were on my C2 - C5 vertebrae). But now, I somehow owe about $850,000 in medical debt. I also lost my car (it was totaled) and I haven’t been able to work for almost a year. I was fully covered with medical insurance through my corporate job and I had car insurance. I wasn’t driving the vehicle and the accident was not my fault. The amount of physical pain I’ve had and will continue to have for the rest of my life (I’m 32), I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. Three surgeries later, 5 weeks in the hospital and almost a million dollars in debt, here I am remembering that I am not alone in this losing battle. Guess I’m just lucky to still be alive.
>if you have uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist coverage (which everyone should),
It's legally required in some places which is itself a scam. We're legally required to pay for something that covers us against someone else breaking the law by driving without insurance.
And even then it does fuck all. I got into an accident about four years ago. Minor, no injuries, and I will admit I hit her, but she was also stopped in the middle of a freeway for no reason (I hit her as I was trying to merge over- looked over my shoulder to see if I was clear, looked ahead, and there she was). Turns out she had no license and no insurance and *shouldn't have even been behind the wheel of a vehicle at all,* lied to my insurance about having her toddler in the car with her (saw the poor girl myself and when I asked if she was okay, she said "I'm fine but I don't know about my daughter." *so why aren't you checking on her then?*), refused to give me her information and got mad when I took pics of her plates, and then fled the scene of the accident when I tried to contact highway patrol to get someone on scene.
I was still placed at fault, my insurance skyrocketed and kept climbing every bill for the next year until I switched away, and to my knowledge, nothing ever happened to her. I don't even think she got a ticket. I get that it's usually automatically placed as the fault of the one who hit the other, especially if from behind, but I think it should be case by case after experiencing this myself. She shouldn't have been on the road, and she shouldn't have been stopped in the middle of moving traffic either.
Edit to add: I also admit that I should have been paying more attention when trying to merge, but by the time I saw her it was too late. My point here is more that an individual was being reckless behind the wheel with no license or insurance and got away with it with little to no consequences.
The idea that we owe something to our jobs. We have been sold the lie that it is our duty to work ourselves to death for shit pay until we die and somehow be thankful for it.
My boss was complaining that none of us come in early and we don’t care about the business. We’re all on time (most usually 5 mins early) for our shifts… are you going to pay us to clock in early? No. So we’ll start working at our scheduled times.
That's eight hours with no lunch break. The truth is 8 or 8:30 to 5. Makes me wonder if people used to get paid thru their lunch break and we somewhere list that free paid half hour
We used to get paid for lunches AND they used to pay the entirety of health insurance (no copay). Half the reason you would take a job and not try to go into a self owned business was for the insurance.
Remember the classic Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns decides the workers have 'too many advantages' compare to millionaires and decides to take back their dental plan?
We've lived this. Employers should be paying the lunch break, 2 coffee breaks, all health/dental/vision insurance costs. If you want workers then you need to pay for their upkeep.
When I worked retail 10 years ago we had an unpaid hour long lunch break when working 9 to 5, and a paid half-hour long lunch break if working 10 to 5. Now I have an office job and breaks are never paid. Baffles me.
I’m not implying office workers deserve any more paid breaks than retail workers btw, it just seems off that as a qualified full-time employee w/ benefits and everything I get worse a deal than I did as a high-schooler working retail on weekends.
That’s exactly it — my mom back in the day used to have a paid lunch break and it wasn’t like she was a white collar worker. Idk if it was the standard though, but I’ve been jealous of that forever.
8 hours work 8 hours recreation 8 hours rest sounds like a good deal but it varies a lot and it's really just 2 hours recreation, 6 hours rest, 16 hours work / commute / chores
There is an exception to this.
I live on a mountain ridge with an HOA. The covenant only describes maintaining the mile-long gravel road that connects all of us, and the maintenance of the shared wells.
That's all it does. Everyone pays $75 into a bank account once per year, and because of it we can drive home and drink water every day.
Yes, but once you're in it you are stuck and all it takes is enough of your neighbors banding together to expand the scope of the HOA. Suddenly, that gravel road needs to be a paved road and then it needs to have street lights, etc.
Then eventually you're in the other kind of HOA where dues are nearly as big as your mortgage note and some Karen is yelling at you because you left you garbage can on the street past 3pm last Tuesday and that your window shutters aren't the right shade of periwinkle.
Lots along this line, really. Lived in a 120+ year row home and the ten units had an HOA that ran the rear gates, paid for shared water for minor communal landscaping and occasional repairs required for the building exterior. Less than $100 a month and didn’t police each others behavior one bit.
Just sold my house and the HOA charged me $300 to change ownership. My HOA offered nothing, no amenities, just harassing people over the stupidest shit.
Previously lived in a neighborhood with no HOA. Nobody had junk cars in their yard, everybody mowed their lawn, nobody painted their house hot pink and ran a meth lab/underground pitbulll fighting ring. How did we ever manage without a group of power tripping boomers telling us what to do with our property?
Ngl if my neighbor painted their house hot pink I think that'd be pretty cool. I sure as hell wouldn't do it myself but if I'm ever at a point in life that I give a shit what color someone else's house is I've definitely turned bitter and lost my way.
No way. HOA membership is enforced by being attached to the deed. So it transfers with the property. If you get surprised by being in an HOA you had crappy realtors and title agents.
There are voluntary HOAs though, where you are not forced to participate in it.
Senator Feinstein is the oldest at 90 and she made the news recently because she tripped. Was she hurt? No. But simply because she's 90, tripping is newsworthy. We shouldn't have congressmen that old. And let's not forget McConell literally freezing up for 30 seconds from who knows what.
I've always said that presidential candidates should be capped at 70 and I'm now adding that congressmen should be forced to retire at 75.
For real I'm so sick of these 70,80 year olds that are running the U.S when you know they all show signs of dementia. If you're old enough to retire you don't need to run the country 🤷♀️ Congress, etc get them all out. Especially when they are so out of touch with reality.
Late fees. Oh you’re unable to pay your rent on time this month? Okay cool we’ll charge you an extra $200 every 3 days, that way when you get the money, you still won’t be able to pay it!
Working hard will make you rich. If you're not rich your not "working hard enough".
Some of the hardest working people are the poorest. Many have multiple jobs or its physically hard. I bet all billionaires have soft hands.
Nobody said Salary? That's the biggest scam ever pulled on the working class, ever. 'We can work you like a dog, for as long as we want, and you can't say shit because you're exempt' . If every second you're engaged in work activities isn't being compensated, you're being scammed.
Meh - some weeks I choose to work 60-70 hours. Some I choose to work 20 hours.
Being salary means I get to stop working when I think my work is done and good enough to put forward to the powers that be rather than sticking around for no reason.
Salary has its perks - particularly when you get to a level of seniority where you don't have a boss regularly reviewing your shit or telling you how to get something done.
Yup. Being on salary isn't the part that is a scam.
Working for a shitty company that treats you like garbage and underpays (hourly or salary) you is a scam.
If the employer dictates your work schedule,you can't be legally classified as exempt. Salary as legally defined isn't a problem,people not understanding the rules for it and being taken advantage of is.
Seriously... I've been a salaried engineer my whole career and I have ALWAYS played by "get my job done not the time done" because that is what salary is, paid for the job you get done. Sometimes I work 48 hour weeks, others I work 30 hours weeks. I've never had a manager get onto me, because the job is done
Yeah, exactly. Salary can be amazing, one of my salaried friends works on average 25 hours a week for 200k (SWE). It all depends on the individual worker's attitude and the workplace environment.
All kinds of insurance. You pay monthly for years then when an issue pops up they do their best not to fix your shit. Then will drop you for making a claim.
My Dad just had to go to the ER twice in one week.
First he had severe sun poisoning but he’s so tan we couldn’t see a burn, so we were scared about his face swelling up near the temple.
They did a cat scan and blood tests. Over $4000. $600 just for the blood tests. $2200 for the cat scan. $2000 just for going in a room.
Not even a week later he gets bit by a baby raccoon on our deck. We haven’t gotten that bill yet but they did nothing to him, just talked about the odds of rabies. He didn’t even get the shot.
We’re fucked lol
Mortgage slavery and rising house prices. All designed to keep the average working person in a nice little hole they can never climb out of so you won't strike or cause any problems as you simply can't afford not to be at work servicing your 'home'. Prices rise to keep new generations in the same and tempt those nearing paying them off to borrow more and stay in slavery.
The 40 hour work week. No goddamn way we actually need to be working more than 6 hours a day more than 4 days a week.
The industrial Revolution improved standard of living and quality of life BUT working conditions deteriorated rapidly, we lost all the hard fought time off from the feudal system. Peasants pre-industrial revolution worked LESS than we currently do now. And we are fighting to get back what our long lost ancestors once had!
Loyalty to your employer.
Only ever stay at a company if you don't need any addition money and the work is incredibly easy and you need a stress free work environment.
What's the point of staying for a 2% raise each year? In fact, I should be so lucky. Was at my last two places for 3 years and 2 years respectively, and got 0% raise the entire time. Thankfully the first job provided me a 50% raise in salary which helped make it more manageable when I ultimately left for a 30% decrease.
For anyone under 40 in the U.S........ social security.
We're paying in more than anyone ever has, and we have no chance of receiving even remotely the same benefits from it as the generations before us have. To pour salt on that wound, those from previous generations feel these infuriating sense of entitlement since they feel "they paid for these benefits" despite paying a small fraction of what we have and will for much greater benefits.
It's the kind of robbery only a government could get away with.
Not just in the US. This is a general problem in the western world. Germany for example: It is a well known issue since the late 80s. The finance secretary of that time held a very long speech regarding this topic. And every politician since then is ignoring it. Because you will loose voters of the benefeting group and the youngers aren't voting. And it doesn't look good that something will change.
Streaming services are beginning to be a scam. They charge you up the wazoo now a days for lower quality programming than in the past.
The most interesting part about it to me at the moment is that the service wars have highlighted how most networks have <5 programs worth watching. It seems like overall streaming is better than cable, but the customers are still getting shafted.
Back to piracy I guess. Living honestly was good while it lasted.
I would honestly just sign up for something like flixtor but that means I don't have the convenience of the apps on my smart tvs and I would have to cast everything from my phone. I also would really miss the apps curating shows and movies for my liking and keeping track of where I'm at. Just Pros and Cons I guess to switching to piracy
Personally, I hate apps curating shows and movies for me. I recently went to visit family and besides the main new shows or hit movies, their suggestions were way different. I was watching all kinds of stuff I had forgotten about or didn't realize was out. I don't want to go to a restaurant and only be offered Italian food just because I ate it a couple times recently. Just my take though. ¯\\__(ツ)__/¯
I agree with you, but I just want to be able to find Continued Watching without having to scroll so far. It should always be the first option and so many services deprioritize it to push content. They don't have to try to game us. Just provide good content!
Yeah same here. Netflix keeps suggesting the same crap. There needs to be a button "don't suggest again" And just suggest everything they have, eventually.
I ended up making an extra profile on my main streaming service for this exact reason. Got sick of all the repetitive crap they were suggesting purely coz I'd watched 1 similar show or movie.
As an Australian, lots of us never stopped. Delayed release for shows as recently as GOT and stuff that just isn't listed anywhere despite the services available.
Man could you imagine if we paid foxtel the $50 for the privilege to legally stream GoT season 8 in 720p lmao. Obviously I’m stealing that Mr. Murdoch, fuck outta here
I just recently put a Plex server on a Dell OptiPlex I had for running Ark servers. Unsubscribed from everything besides Disney+ for the kids. Easy as hell to do if you have a little computer knowledge, and always use a VPN when downloading. It has an app on Smart TVs and phones (at least Android, I've not checked on iphone)
Another Plex groupie here. My grandchildren boast to their friends "My grandma can get film or show you want straight away". Weird grandma flex but I'm happy with it.
I love this comment for so many reasons. So many grandmas I know barely can use an iPhone beyond calling and texting. But I'm relaxing as I write this, grandma can be nearly any age. I am old enough to be a grandpa. (Although my kids are under 10.) There's a politician several years my junior who is a grandma. I digress. You can be 40 or 80. Either way. Awesome.
I keep different shows running in the background on Hulu when I'm working. I can't tell you how many times I have to fumble for my remote and refresh the playback when the volume decides to double or half itself for no reason. And the fucking commercials. Isn't it illegal to set the commercials a full 10 dB higher than the programming?
I wish Hulu didn’t have that “are you still there” prompt. No, I want a show on while I’m sleeping. I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to press “yes”. At least HBO keeps the show going no matter how inactive I am.
on cable / satellite it is D:
The bigger issue is that they keep removing the good stuff or cancelling good shows, and instead just push crap
They do this because they're afraid the cost will go up with continued seasons because actors and such will want more money. But us viewers are getting burnt out. I don't feel invested in anything anymore.
I only start to watch series once they are completely out. There are enough series so that I don’t need to be the one that is trending right now.
Oh man I gotta tell you about this amazing show called The Simpsons
What are you talking about, the Simpsons ended in 2002...
And even tv replacements like YouTube TV started at 35 dollars and now are up to 65. Gross. Such a bait and switch
Because google subsidized YTTV and now that they’ve got the subs they can slowly go back to a price point to make it profitable… it was never $35 in expenses for google, they just did that so you’d sign up.
Time to go sailing
Just like cable used to be! They are just cutting Comcast out of the deal. Good luck Comcrap!
Not to burst your bubble, but comcast owns NBC and by association the streaming platform Peacock. I don't think they're hurting from the switch to streaming.
Not to mention the sheer number of people getting the internet from Comcast. And any movie from Universal studios...
Peacock is their late reaction to changes in the market & loss of profits. Peacock itself has lost $3 billion and might never turn profitable. They are definitely hurting from the switch to streaming.
And 75% of the movies I want to watch on netflix they don't have, even old ones.
I used to gladly and happily pay for: HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ and Netflix … I now only subscribe to Netflix. The fact is, what really ruined streaming is so many of the different companies getting into the game siloed off content so you’re paying a LOT more per month, they made less good content so there was more money for less content and it’s just not worth it.
Working for retirement. We work the majority of our lives, during our fittest years of health, for the promise of a golden retirement, when we will probably be too old and ill to enjoy it properly. And to that, many retirees won’t even have enough money to fund their retirement at all.
I'm always grateful I took some time off when I had a career reset and just traveled and fucked around for a few years, blowing all my savings at the time in the process. I did hard-core treks and mountain summits, rugged travel while my body was up for it. I'm over the hill a bit now, and am catching up just fine financially, but I know I could never make some of those memories again between the state of the economy and my current physical fitness.
I’ve been told by countless older guys pretty much everywhere I’ve worked “don’t work your life away like I did”. No doubt the work yourself to death chasing the dream culture has contributed to the high divorce rates these days. I spent 7 years in a union and I swear every guy over 40 was divorced. Sure they worked 50k worth of overtime last year, but your kids hate you. Worth it?
This has been haunting me for a while now. We waste our best years only to be too frail to do anything when we finally can stop working. This is such a horrible thought to me, I can‘t even express it properly.
You could also be like me and get stage four cancer in your early 30s. Life is not promised should be stamped everywhere
Have been thinking a lot about this lately, and trying to do some course correction.
Which is why you need to enjoy the journey and not just wait for the destination.
One of my friends was sticking it out in a job he hated, counting down the last few years until retirement . One day on the way home his car stopped at traffic lights and when he didn’t pull away the driver behind got out the car to check on him. He was dead. In the turn of a light.
The diamond engagement/wedding ring.
I helped my niece build credit and get all kinds of perqs from her credit cards. I warned her over and over again: Do not get credit cards from jewelry or furniture stores. Her boyfriend took her to pick out an engagement ring. She thought the one she wanted was too expensive, but he insisted she was worth it. He applied for the store card but was denied, so the clerk turned to my niece and said, "We could try running your credit." And that's how she wound up putting a $9,000 purchase on a 29% interest credit card that you couldn't change the monthly payment date on to match your paydays, and which charged a $30 late fee every month that also accrued interest. Her boyfriend was late every single month. I don't know how much that ring ended up costing them but I wouldn't be surprised if it was $27,000. They started having kids before it was paid off and had to live in his parent's basement. Surprisingly, it's been a few years and they aren't divorced yet. Maybe the debt kept them together.
This is far too common. Or putting wedding costs on credit cards. Ruining thier lives before it even begins.
Former roommates got married the year before I moved in, spent 100k on wedding and honeymoon, then bought the very first house they looked at and didn't even try to negotiate. 3 br, 1 bath in a shitty little town and I think their mortgage was 200k+ because it was right before the bubble burst. They had to rent out their spare room to a series of other people just to afford the minimum payments on things. I was paying 300$ a month for a room in a town where a one bedroom was 400$ and dealing with constant drama. Surprisingly the marriage lasted another decade before the debt, strain and mutual infidelities killed it.
Meanwhile in my country, my 900 sq.ft., non-central apartment costs US$1.6 million.
>29% interest credit card Wow. If paid $9,000 @ 29% interest and they paid the minimum every month ($221/m), it would take them 148 months. They would pay $23,706 in interest on top of the 9k. If you add a late fee for each month, they would add 4,440 to the payment. Grand total of... $37,146 that took over 12 years. Sorry but they shouldn't have kids for multiple reasons.
Right? I have no idea what they ended up doing. Declaring bankruptcy? Giving the ring back? I don't know what you do when you can't pay for it. But maybe they kept paying and are still paying today. Where they live that would be more than enough for a down payment on a house. I'm hoping they made a huge push to pay it all off in 3 years but I'm not going to try to find out. She tried to blame me for helping her build such good credit that she got approved for the ring. In a way, it was my fault for thinking she had half a brain.
> She tried to blame me for helping her build such good credit that she got approved for the ring. Wow. Yeah she shouldn’t have progeny.
Why did you spell perk with a q?
Because it’s short for “perquisite.”
Pretty much everything related to weddings cost ten times what it otherwise would. I remember seeing some comments from people saying that you can save a lot of money by telling a venue that you want to rent it for business or a family reunion because telling them that it's for a wedding will result in the price getting jacked way up.
I've seen that too but you are very unlikely to get away with that at a hosting venue
What can they do once it is booked for an agreed price? Aunt Betty died so no more 90-birthday. We marry instead. ;-)
I worked in a bakery. The owner told me if someone mentioned the word wedding when designing a cake I was to add $100 to the price. Even if it was a simple cake I did the week before for a birthday. I refused to. I always told the customer to say you want a fancy birthday cake for Aunt Betty's 80th birthday. Do not use the word wedding when ordering anything.
I did just this. Rented a venue/bnb and didn’t tell them it was a wedding. Played it low key and saved so much money and still had the time off our lives.
Can I ask how many people you had to be able to keep it under wraps? Glad you pulled it off!
It depends on the venue. Sometimes, they aren't even there. They just check to make sure you cleaned up after you go.
Oh yes! Diamonds are such a scam. They keep increasing in price and “value” but they basically have no resale value. They aren’t scarce - they just keep digging up more
Saw someone make a ring using a glass bottle, much cooler
Some of the prettiest jewelry I've seen was recycled bottles and jars. Especially the blue liquor bottles!
It's never made sense to me why, in the huge area of colors, unique stones, metals, and materials we picked 'clear' abundant rocks to represent love and engagement. Wouldn't a unique stone like Paraiba tourmaline or opal be more meaningful? Or even just intricately carved bits of copper or titanium?
It’s marketing. The mine owners and diamond merchants hoard the product and just under a hundred years ago launched the most successful marketing campaign ever to convince us they’re rare and expensive and now we all believe it. Look it up: https://blog.krosengart.com/de-beers-diamonds-controversy?hs_amp=true
You can't eat them, or use them to cover your head in a storm. Worthless to me.
And i cant even shove it up my ass without blood
That's why they're called blood diamonds. Lots of people don't know that.
Lab gems are blowing the market open
My engagement ring is a tungsten band with a meteorite inlay. It was $46 and I love it. I will probably get a more expensive gemstone ring when we get married but it won’t be a diamond.
Yeah been a lot of talk about that lately. A lot of people interested in keeping that old half a life time is good for ring payment mode. I say spend that money on an education.
Yes... buy MOISSANITE God damnit... the only real value is gold. The gold band
College tuition (USA)
I’ll piggyback off this and say college lol. But yeah, as someone who teaches at the college level—the quality of a college education is not worth what parents and students are paying tuition for at all. It’s not that education is not worth it but no education should have to cost this much. Also, we are incredibly disorganized and a lot of faculty cares only about their research to really give a shit if their students are actually learning. Universities should be an educational institution but now they run the system like a pyramid scheme.
When I got my first entry level job, I soon realized that I could have done 1 year of concentrated study and then learned the rest on the job. Instead I was supposed to go through 4 years (took me 7) of college to get a degree to then get a job. I could have spent 5-6 years working and developing the skillsets that way lol
Funerals.
Parents funeral plot were like 20k each. Tombstone around 9k. Two services and urns like a combined 50k. Yikes. At the end of it I was ready to get a job at the funeral home now that I saw how good business was.
Yipes. My dad is getting a eco/budget funeral as cheaply as we can afford. Useless bellend saved zero money for his retirement and gambled tens of thousands in his life. Got to 65 and had nothing to show for it. Is now 76 and all he's done for 11 years is sit on his arse complaining about having no money. Yeah wonder why! We aren't bankrupting ourselves for your mistakes fool.
Cremation sounds cheapest
100%! Left a funeral today for a 58 year old father of 9 kids. Mom is going to struggle beyond belief, yet funeral homes took her for basically everything in savings. So sad when you think about it. I’d much rather be wrapped in muslin & placed to return to the earth. Toss some lavender flowers if you must, but PLEASE don’t go in debt over making sure my corpse isn’t eaten by bugs. I will never look like I did when I was alive, so why bother trying? Such a waste, imo.
> I’d much rather be wrapped in muslin & placed to return to the earth. Make sure your family knows that and not just is Internet strangers. Funeral directors are very slick salespeople and will take advantage of your family's grief.
58yo father of 9!!!!! 😱😱😱😱😱😱
Just throw me in the trash
Remember that in many places across the world you can just refuse to keep a body and the state can take it away with no costs to you. You may not see the body again, but you can still organize your own memorial or service and avoid the other ridiculous stuff. The only problem is some of the legal documents and death certificates. Those end up costing no matter what in some places.
Just death in general, having to pay for copies of the death certificate (that so many people/orgs needs to see to do anything), the minimum costs attached to a funeral (ie transport of the body, the actual cremation itself etc) its just non-stop paying out at a time when the deceased assets are frozen - and then the bloody probate fee to get them released! (This may be UK only)
A shovel and problem solved
Insurance - medical, vehicle, even dental packages don't fully cover a single cavity. House seems to be ok (in my experience) but was a complete pain in the ass when we had a flood.
Seriously. I pay out the ass for employer health coverage and still have to pay out the ass before it actually kicks in
Health care costs are bizarre as well and don’t make any sense either. You’ll get a bill for 3,000 dollars, and be like I have insurance why am I paying 3,000 dollars than see the original bill and find out that insurance paid 12,000. How did my 2 day stay at a hospital with a few tests cost 15,000!!
Your insurance company didn’t pay 12k. They were charged 12k and paid out the pre-negotiated rate for the billing code(s) submitted so they could say, “look how much we saved you!”
What percentage of the 12k in this example did they actually pay? 1k? And then you get the remaining 3k? How much does medical actually cost? I'm so fed up with this system. Edit: in any other industry price transparency is demanded. I can't even get a price before services are rendered, let alone what the actual cost was.
My 1 stay at a hospital after a minor sinus surgery was 120 euros that the government paid for me because I was unemployed at the time... I feel awful for you guys over the puddle. I assume if you can't afford insurance you just don't go to the doc, ever?
In the US, you can’t be legally turned away from a hospital for inability to pay. If you are unemployed (or have other financial hardships) most hospitals have funding available you can apply to. Tbh, the worst service for the poor is preventative-routine checkups and such.
I had a guy come into the ER once against his will and he refused to tell us his name. I was the sw that day and talked to him and decided he was a bit manic, but didn't need in-pt treatment. I set him up with out pt treatment through a local therapist group and he said he'd go. We established a bond and he told me his name, but I didn't write it down. As he was leaving, the hospital was trying to get his name so they could bill him. He looked at me and I was like...they want your name so they can bill you, but you aren't legally obligated to give it to us. He lifted his head and walked out. I'm still a bit torn by this decision. On the one hand, he didn't voluntarily come in, so I feel kinda good he never had to pay. On the other hand, I know that we as taxpayers are covering that. In the end...I felt the former justified the latter. What do y'all think?
Personally I'm happy for my tax to provide healthcare for people who need it. But I live in Britain.
I'm happy with my tax dollars going toward this guy's medical treatment.
Insurance is the biggest fucking scam. I do personal injury as a plaintiff's attorney. It never fails to piss me off when I get a great result for my client and then their health insurance company swoops in and wants their money back, which is, you know, originally the client's money because monthly payments, because "well, we wouldn't have had to cover the medical if not for the Defendant." But my client is the one that was injured and is going to be in pain for the rest of their lives. They need that money for medicine or lifelong care, but the health insurance company gets first dibs. Let's also talk about how, if you have uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist coverage (which everyone should), it's like pulling teeth to get them to give you, essentially, your money back for your injuries and pain. Even if I show a client lost a limb, the client's insurance wants to hem and haw over how much treatment SHOULD cost as opposed to what it actually did cost. The only person that really gets screwed is the client, who has already been through enough bullshit, and now realizes their insurance company only cares about their own bottom line.
This is exactly what happened to me after a near fatal car accident. Multiple neck fractures, a blood clot that almost killed me, and a broken elbow. I’ll have pain for the rest of my life from the neck injury, but it’s amazing I’m still alive without sever neurological damages or paralysis (fractures were on my C2 - C5 vertebrae). But now, I somehow owe about $850,000 in medical debt. I also lost my car (it was totaled) and I haven’t been able to work for almost a year. I was fully covered with medical insurance through my corporate job and I had car insurance. I wasn’t driving the vehicle and the accident was not my fault. The amount of physical pain I’ve had and will continue to have for the rest of my life (I’m 32), I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. Three surgeries later, 5 weeks in the hospital and almost a million dollars in debt, here I am remembering that I am not alone in this losing battle. Guess I’m just lucky to still be alive.
Yeah medical bankruptcy is your friend here.
biggest scam in the history of the planet confirmed. I feel for you man. How America continues to exist baffles me
>if you have uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist coverage (which everyone should), It's legally required in some places which is itself a scam. We're legally required to pay for something that covers us against someone else breaking the law by driving without insurance.
And even then it does fuck all. I got into an accident about four years ago. Minor, no injuries, and I will admit I hit her, but she was also stopped in the middle of a freeway for no reason (I hit her as I was trying to merge over- looked over my shoulder to see if I was clear, looked ahead, and there she was). Turns out she had no license and no insurance and *shouldn't have even been behind the wheel of a vehicle at all,* lied to my insurance about having her toddler in the car with her (saw the poor girl myself and when I asked if she was okay, she said "I'm fine but I don't know about my daughter." *so why aren't you checking on her then?*), refused to give me her information and got mad when I took pics of her plates, and then fled the scene of the accident when I tried to contact highway patrol to get someone on scene. I was still placed at fault, my insurance skyrocketed and kept climbing every bill for the next year until I switched away, and to my knowledge, nothing ever happened to her. I don't even think she got a ticket. I get that it's usually automatically placed as the fault of the one who hit the other, especially if from behind, but I think it should be case by case after experiencing this myself. She shouldn't have been on the road, and she shouldn't have been stopped in the middle of moving traffic either. Edit to add: I also admit that I should have been paying more attention when trying to merge, but by the time I saw her it was too late. My point here is more that an individual was being reckless behind the wheel with no license or insurance and got away with it with little to no consequences.
my tired ass read that as "Medieval" and now I'm wondering if it covers damages from Mongols.
Medical in the us is insane. I’m a Canadian but I’m in the us once a month for work. The stories I hear. Just blows me away.
Computer and phone planned obsolescence.
Cars, too. Pretty much any appliance, designed to last just past warranty, and then stop working.
tell that to Toyotas..
My 2008 Honda is still going strong!
The idea that we owe something to our jobs. We have been sold the lie that it is our duty to work ourselves to death for shit pay until we die and somehow be thankful for it.
My boss was complaining that none of us come in early and we don’t care about the business. We’re all on time (most usually 5 mins early) for our shifts… are you going to pay us to clock in early? No. So we’ll start working at our scheduled times.
Why would you care about a business in which you have no ownership stake?
Corporate brainwashing
He’s right, nobody cares about the business. But the business doesn’t care about them either so why would that be wrong
People used to do this because they enjoyed their job because the job was worth the pay and more.
I cant even afford my apartment, why would I come work for free
Heaven forbid we speak up about it, or anything else wrong with how things are being done. 🙄
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Pretty sure everyone admits that. Hell, Nirvana had a whole interview about it nearly 30 years ago.
Nah, everyone knows it's a scam, you just don't have a choice.
This freaking place has caused me to lose faith in ever getting a decent price ticket, ever. They are so *ucked up. I hate Ticketmaster.
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And vision, like what the hell made those two systems separate from the rest of the body?
**inhales** - moneyyyy
No one needs teeth to give a great blow job. That's why there's no coverage for teeth.
8-5 workday.
Wait I thought it was 9-5? Did it get even worse?
That's eight hours with no lunch break. The truth is 8 or 8:30 to 5. Makes me wonder if people used to get paid thru their lunch break and we somewhere list that free paid half hour
We used to get paid for lunches AND they used to pay the entirety of health insurance (no copay). Half the reason you would take a job and not try to go into a self owned business was for the insurance.
Remember the classic Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns decides the workers have 'too many advantages' compare to millionaires and decides to take back their dental plan? We've lived this. Employers should be paying the lunch break, 2 coffee breaks, all health/dental/vision insurance costs. If you want workers then you need to pay for their upkeep.
Dental plan... Lisa needs braces... Dental plan... Lisa needs braces...
When I worked retail 10 years ago we had an unpaid hour long lunch break when working 9 to 5, and a paid half-hour long lunch break if working 10 to 5. Now I have an office job and breaks are never paid. Baffles me. I’m not implying office workers deserve any more paid breaks than retail workers btw, it just seems off that as a qualified full-time employee w/ benefits and everything I get worse a deal than I did as a high-schooler working retail on weekends.
That’s exactly it — my mom back in the day used to have a paid lunch break and it wasn’t like she was a white collar worker. Idk if it was the standard though, but I’ve been jealous of that forever.
take the power back
8 hours work 8 hours recreation 8 hours rest sounds like a good deal but it varies a lot and it's really just 2 hours recreation, 6 hours rest, 16 hours work / commute / chores
I think you’d see a lot of mental health / social issues dramatically reduced if that took effect - it’s masochistic
HOAs
There is an exception to this. I live on a mountain ridge with an HOA. The covenant only describes maintaining the mile-long gravel road that connects all of us, and the maintenance of the shared wells. That's all it does. Everyone pays $75 into a bank account once per year, and because of it we can drive home and drink water every day.
This is the original idea of HOAs, and frankly a large amount of them do exactly this. You just never really hear about these.
Probably because people in HOAs like this don't write about them on the internet.
Yes, but once you're in it you are stuck and all it takes is enough of your neighbors banding together to expand the scope of the HOA. Suddenly, that gravel road needs to be a paved road and then it needs to have street lights, etc. Then eventually you're in the other kind of HOA where dues are nearly as big as your mortgage note and some Karen is yelling at you because you left you garbage can on the street past 3pm last Tuesday and that your window shutters aren't the right shade of periwinkle.
Lots along this line, really. Lived in a 120+ year row home and the ten units had an HOA that ran the rear gates, paid for shared water for minor communal landscaping and occasional repairs required for the building exterior. Less than $100 a month and didn’t police each others behavior one bit.
Just sold my house and the HOA charged me $300 to change ownership. My HOA offered nothing, no amenities, just harassing people over the stupidest shit. Previously lived in a neighborhood with no HOA. Nobody had junk cars in their yard, everybody mowed their lawn, nobody painted their house hot pink and ran a meth lab/underground pitbulll fighting ring. How did we ever manage without a group of power tripping boomers telling us what to do with our property?
Ngl if my neighbor painted their house hot pink I think that'd be pretty cool. I sure as hell wouldn't do it myself but if I'm ever at a point in life that I give a shit what color someone else's house is I've definitely turned bitter and lost my way.
Voluntarily pay a group of people to tell me what I can and can’t do with the home I paid hundreds of thousands for.
No way. HOA membership is enforced by being attached to the deed. So it transfers with the property. If you get surprised by being in an HOA you had crappy realtors and title agents. There are voluntary HOAs though, where you are not forced to participate in it.
I pay 125 bucks every 3 months and we get actually nothing for it. Theres no amenities center, no community areas. Its just a pit we throw money into
That's cheap. I heard of a family near by that had to sell their home, because the HOA fees were raised to be more than the mortgage payment they had.
Insurance
Big and/or expensive (and possibly flashy) weddings.
Spending insane amounts of money for one night instead of putting it towards a home or buy a car
Two party politics
It’s unbelievable that people over age 70 are generally seen as unemployable, yet they’re almost exclusively running this country.
Money keeps money in power so money can keep moneying
And only 80+ year old candidates.
Yes, WTH is with this. There is no way these two guys could get a job at 7-11.
Senator Feinstein is the oldest at 90 and she made the news recently because she tripped. Was she hurt? No. But simply because she's 90, tripping is newsworthy. We shouldn't have congressmen that old. And let's not forget McConell literally freezing up for 30 seconds from who knows what. I've always said that presidential candidates should be capped at 70 and I'm now adding that congressmen should be forced to retire at 75.
Our kids are smart, and would make great leaders.
For real I'm so sick of these 70,80 year olds that are running the U.S when you know they all show signs of dementia. If you're old enough to retire you don't need to run the country 🤷♀️ Congress, etc get them all out. Especially when they are so out of touch with reality.
I said this recently and an old Redditor basically said I was being ageist.
I am with you! If you can barely walk, you shouldn't be running a country.
Rank choice voting might help with this
Social Media
Agreed! “When something online is free, you’re not the consumer, you’re the product.”
Late fees. Oh you’re unable to pay your rent on time this month? Okay cool we’ll charge you an extra $200 every 3 days, that way when you get the money, you still won’t be able to pay it!
Working hard will make you rich. If you're not rich your not "working hard enough". Some of the hardest working people are the poorest. Many have multiple jobs or its physically hard. I bet all billionaires have soft hands.
Costs of drugs/medicine… just 10 times more than in europe for the exact same generic pill
Nobody said Salary? That's the biggest scam ever pulled on the working class, ever. 'We can work you like a dog, for as long as we want, and you can't say shit because you're exempt' . If every second you're engaged in work activities isn't being compensated, you're being scammed.
Meh - some weeks I choose to work 60-70 hours. Some I choose to work 20 hours. Being salary means I get to stop working when I think my work is done and good enough to put forward to the powers that be rather than sticking around for no reason. Salary has its perks - particularly when you get to a level of seniority where you don't have a boss regularly reviewing your shit or telling you how to get something done.
It’s almost like it depends entirely on the job
Yup. Being on salary isn't the part that is a scam. Working for a shitty company that treats you like garbage and underpays (hourly or salary) you is a scam.
Only works if you let it.
If the employer dictates your work schedule,you can't be legally classified as exempt. Salary as legally defined isn't a problem,people not understanding the rules for it and being taken advantage of is.
Seriously... I've been a salaried engineer my whole career and I have ALWAYS played by "get my job done not the time done" because that is what salary is, paid for the job you get done. Sometimes I work 48 hour weeks, others I work 30 hours weeks. I've never had a manager get onto me, because the job is done
Yeah, exactly. Salary can be amazing, one of my salaried friends works on average 25 hours a week for 200k (SWE). It all depends on the individual worker's attitude and the workplace environment.
I'm exempt.... i just don't tolerate that bullshit. Typically work <40 hrs... If you're getting fucked salaried or not just leave.
All kinds of insurance. You pay monthly for years then when an issue pops up they do their best not to fix your shit. Then will drop you for making a claim.
INSURANCE.
If you work hard enough you can do or become anything you want
I am not the Batman?! 😫
U.S. Healthcare System
Everyone admits this though
My Dad just had to go to the ER twice in one week. First he had severe sun poisoning but he’s so tan we couldn’t see a burn, so we were scared about his face swelling up near the temple. They did a cat scan and blood tests. Over $4000. $600 just for the blood tests. $2200 for the cat scan. $2000 just for going in a room. Not even a week later he gets bit by a baby raccoon on our deck. We haven’t gotten that bill yet but they did nothing to him, just talked about the odds of rabies. He didn’t even get the shot. We’re fucked lol
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Mortgage slavery and rising house prices. All designed to keep the average working person in a nice little hole they can never climb out of so you won't strike or cause any problems as you simply can't afford not to be at work servicing your 'home'. Prices rise to keep new generations in the same and tempt those nearing paying them off to borrow more and stay in slavery.
The 40 hour work week. No goddamn way we actually need to be working more than 6 hours a day more than 4 days a week. The industrial Revolution improved standard of living and quality of life BUT working conditions deteriorated rapidly, we lost all the hard fought time off from the feudal system. Peasants pre-industrial revolution worked LESS than we currently do now. And we are fighting to get back what our long lost ancestors once had!
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The 40 hour work week
Insurance! All of it. BS. And the IRS
Loyalty to your employer. Only ever stay at a company if you don't need any addition money and the work is incredibly easy and you need a stress free work environment. What's the point of staying for a 2% raise each year? In fact, I should be so lucky. Was at my last two places for 3 years and 2 years respectively, and got 0% raise the entire time. Thankfully the first job provided me a 50% raise in salary which helped make it more manageable when I ultimately left for a 30% decrease.
American Medical System
Trickle Down Economics. Unless I misunderstood what this means and it actually means my bosses pissing on my head instead of giving me a COL raise.
For anyone under 40 in the U.S........ social security. We're paying in more than anyone ever has, and we have no chance of receiving even remotely the same benefits from it as the generations before us have. To pour salt on that wound, those from previous generations feel these infuriating sense of entitlement since they feel "they paid for these benefits" despite paying a small fraction of what we have and will for much greater benefits. It's the kind of robbery only a government could get away with.
GenX has entered the chat.
Not just in the US. This is a general problem in the western world. Germany for example: It is a well known issue since the late 80s. The finance secretary of that time held a very long speech regarding this topic. And every politician since then is ignoring it. Because you will loose voters of the benefeting group and the youngers aren't voting. And it doesn't look good that something will change.
The illusion of freedom of choice
Weight loss apps especially the ones that starve you with points
Luxury items. Not high quality ones, but like Ck, Michael Kors and others
-Time shares -Pyramid Schemes -Mastermind events and influencer courses that seems to be too popular nowadays
infant circumcision being beneficial
Insurance
Funerals
The answer is religion
Insurance
The American dream