As you walk through the world, the shadows pull on you. They tease out threads of expense which become connected to their debt machines. When you sign up for a service, it becomes a connection. When you buy a product, you are now part of the producers machine. They feed off of you and the more that you want for comfort, the more it will cost. In some ways, comfort is an illusion and the benefits are not incrementally greater. For there is us and them and we are not them, we are us. Us is the masses, the regular people of the world. The ones who go to the airport and go through security. Even if people believe they are getting special treatment or they paid a heck of a lot more for better service, it is nothing compared to what a very small percentage of human beings have available to them in regard to resources. More money doesn’t amount to actual cash, it amounts to managing debt and gaining entitlements. First class is for the highest level of chump. The people flying at this level may have the money to do it but they don’t have the money to fly themselves unrestricted with no TSA from country to country without a care or a passport.
What First class is now is the highest level of “the suck.” It isn’t limited to any one industry either. First class on the cruise lines, First class in the air, First class in the restaurant, First class everywhere. Special fees and prices in the hotels for you to gamble and watch a show. All of these are now sucking on you every where you go. Not just in the services that you choose to buy for entertainment. You can have First class phones and phone service, First class internet and the list goes on and on. As we have all seen in plain sight, the people controlling the world and generating the most money, they don’t do anything First class.
They live outside the lines of the system while we pay for it. I recently went on a trip where I came to realize through a series of events the patterns that exist for all of us today. It was an examination of customer experience that brought me to see and understand that I was mixing up the idea of experience with the concept of value. Value and experience are independent. Today, we can spend a lot of money seeking a great experience but never get the value.
What is absolutely true today is that for almost everything you buy there is a long tail of costs associated. For anything you sign up for, it is a one way contract that is legally binding by the implication of “I agree.” Even if you purchase a product, you are not buying it, you are subscribing to it because it is not built to last for ever. It has a term that it is designed for and you will need to manage your subscription to whatever it is that you acquire.
The call to action is clear. If we want value out of the products and services, we need to take back the narrative of value. Your time is valuable and your experience has value. Companies today are dictating the terms and we accept these because we feel helpless or at the time we buy something we just do what we need to do like sheep. If one of us were to push back, it means nothing. We are just one of many and they can always get another one. The other thing that is happening, is that we are buying and consuming in waves with low restrictions due to our accessibility to credit, an instinct for “living the life we deserve” and a service industry that understand how to commercialize our incessant hunger and our limited ability to maintain control of our spend.
A woman went to buy a necklace from a vendor. She knew the vendor would haggle with her and so she was prepared. She asked “how much” for the necklace and as he looked up, he looked past her at the people walking in his direction. He said “100.00 for the chain, tings expensive dees days from all da tax man.” She said “I can do 75.” He looked back at her and over her shoulder, and said “no.” She tried to move him down from 100 but he stayed put because he knew, the people behind her meant 150 or more. Now the same scenario today is exacerbated by dealing with the machine. Now the machine dispenses a necklace and there is no man. The machine is pumped up with all the numbers, the data and the statistics. The cost of the necklace is now 300 because the machine is told that at least one of us will push the button and spend the money.
This is now where we are today. If things are going to change, we are going to need to press hard and push back not allowing service to be done to us but to be service for us.
We need to “tax them back” the car services that charge us for a drive way pick up, the airlines ripping us off at every step and every other service that takes a $1.20 when it was advertising .50 cents. The money isn’t going their employees either, it just goes into the pool of money they give themselves as a reward and don’t spend but borrow against.
In the days ahead, I’ll post some ideas. The illusion of service like “First class” needs to be shattered at least for people to understand what they are getting themselves into. Education is the start ..
If you notice errors in my writing, I’d like you to know while these aren’t here on purpose, I am not using AI for these posts. There are a few posts that I plan on using some AI for but the ideas and the writing are mine. I feel that we are getting away from ourselves and our own thinking if we leave it all to the machine. So, if you see an error, consider it part of my art.
love your “art” .
Howie, I get what you are saying but think it is more about the illusion of comfort that is our value system. What we must understand that comfort is fleeting and peace is eternal, and we all seek peace of mind and peace in our beings as something to value but we tend to keep it on the surface and only consider comfort instead. I feel unless we completely change our value system we will always be at the mercy of the producers. They only value us as profit margins and stainability of their markets. We need to value more the necessities of life like clean water, air, a roof over our heads and food on the table and energy enough for us to do the activities we need to be at peace.