I woke up with this post almost fully realised in my head this morning. This is a good sign! I hope to get back to writing more this year.
I was thinking about the things we’ve lost to corporate greed. It’s a long list and I believe that these things that have been monetized to the hilt are part of the reason so many of us are depressed and bored. Here we go.
MUSIC & TV
Not only have we GenXers had to go from records to cassettes to CDs then back to records, we’ve lost radio to subscriptions. I’m happy that radio is rebounding a little here in ATL. 99x is back on the air and there are a couple of other stations still hanging on. But since the advent of the internet, the monetization of music has pretty much torpedoed free over the air radio. I have my curated list on my phone, but I have to consciously go forth and search for new music. This contraction is why TayTay RULES pop music and there are so few artists getting traction. I’ll also touch on the advent of AutoTune, which has absolutely devastated TALENT in music. That rant is for another day, but AutoTune has contributed significantly to the decline of talent being necessary to make it in music.
TV is the same: cable ruined over the air, but it *is* still available if an HD antenna will work for you (won’t for me). I’ve not had live TV in years. I’ve given up watching horse racing, ice skating and NFL amongst other things and it sucks. I’ve got Netflix, Disco+, AppleTV, PBS and free Peacock and still cannot enjoy the few things I like. NO JOY.
INTERNET
Back in the day, mid 90s, when all of us tech minded GENXers were CREATING THE DAMN INTERNET, things were pretty wild and wooly. Content was everywhere, socials were not clogging up things yet. You had to know how to create a search term (over on DogPile, REPRESENT) to find anything while using your Netscape Gold (which we called Nutscrape because reasons). Then Google happened: YAY! better searching! Then the socials started to show up. I remember a kid talking about FaceBook in the early aughts, and I thought it sounded stupid. Everyone had a MySpace page, complete with annoying music. Tripod was a place you could put together a website without hand coding! Miracle! Websites were hand coded, then DreamWeaver changed everything for us nerds who were into websites. THEN the corporations started to form around Google and the socials. The tech bros wondered if these sites with tons of users could be worth anything? By the 2010s, FB had gobbled up everything and the rest is history. I also remember Twitter and the awesome thing it WAS before bots and Felon Tusk. Now AI will continue to ruin all that is (was) good about the internet. And it makes me sad. Further reading about the enshittification of TECH by Edward Zitron: Never Forgive Them NOTE: This guy is young (b 1987), so he does not remember the Olden Days™, therefore I take a grain of salt with his writings. He is also a tech bro, which I don’t care for. The article is still worth your time, however.
SHOPPING
Back in the Olden Days™ (1900s!), Walmart was all about American Made. Most of their products had this proudly emblazoned on the labels. Then the old man died and the money grubbing children took over. In an effort to remain the cheapest place to shop (in consumer minds, it really is NOT, LOSS LEADERS, look it up), they decided that all their vendors needed to manufacture in China to bring down the cost of their products. Now I’ll tangent a little to tell you a story about a lady I met at some random job, whose company was forced to manufacture in China if they wanted to sell at Walmart, so they did. Then the Chinese booted them from their factory and the country and STOLE IT ALL. Walmart said ‘too bad, so sad’ and dropped them. This is why I have a bad attitude about the Chinese and their complete lack of integrity when it comes to copyrights and fair treatment. THIS story is why I will not shop at Walmart and I do my best to find American made products if possible. 99.9% of the time, it is not. Thanks Walmart for nuking manufacturing in America.
Then, of course, there is Amazon. The other elephant in the room that stomped out small business across the land and killed bookstores outright. I also do not shop at Amazon very much, I try to find things on eBay, which is the last bastion of small businesses online. You’ve got to be careful to avoid the Chinese on eBay, they proliferate. And even if you filter to N America only, they’ll still get you. I ordered some compression gloves from “Kentucky” which took 2.5 weeks to arrive. They were from China and repackaged no doubt.
HEALTHCARE
Not much to add about this, everyone knows how fucked up healthcare is in the US. Corporations (insurance) run it and they are out for money, fuck you and your health. Bravo to the shooter, I giggled with glee. I DGAF about that CEO – just like he didn’t give a fuck about how many people HE KILLED with his company. Fuck them all.
GROCERIES
Of course, we can all understand that the pandemic fucked up the food supply lines and things were pricey AF simply because it was so hard to get items moved from one place to another. BUT. Then the corporations who own the food supplies just left the prices where they were. Are we shocked? NO WE ARE NOT. These corporations are out for MONEY. Fuck you and your groceries. Food is up about 25% across the board – if not by price, then by shrinkflation, which is the method of reducing the size of the item but keeping the price the same. This has been going on for years – a “pound” of coffee has been 12oz forever. But now it’s in just about everything. This is earning the corporations 25% any way you slice it.
HOUSING
Not much to add about this, either, it’s well covered by many. The outrageous cost of buying or renting has been fueled by corporations buying up all the starter homes and rentals in the 08 crash. Corporations should not be allowed to own private residences, period. When corporations own all the property and control all the prices, this is what you get.
The bottom line is that allowing corporations to run wild is what is fueling this plethora of oligopolies that are controlling massive swaths of our economy (and our lives). For an explanation of OLIGOPOLY, I give you the first honest cable ad:
Link to the youtube video if iframe is not working HERE.
Corporate greed is the root of why there is no joy in ANYTHING any more. Listening to music, reading a book, going shopping, going out to eat, hell, even movies are foul now. Corporations have brought this country to its knees economically and beaten its citizens into two groups: one is just TIRED and SAD; the other is too stupid to see that there’s a problem. The next four years will be tough, my peeps. As corporations continue to aggregate power (a fucking rich fuck OWNS the goddam president FFS) and the rich continue to get richer, the rest of us will continue to barely hang on. I don’t want a civil war, but I think it could happen. What I do totally support is uprising against these rich fuckers and their corporations. We, as a nation, need to decide that we are not going to allow corporations to rule this country. We need to take back our nation and provide for EVERYONE, not just rich fucks. I’m fine with any method we choose to do that. Take that as you will.
