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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy
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Homeopathy?
Printer inkt. In our shop people are still buying them for a way to high priceβ¦
Windows. You pay ~100β¬ just to give your personal data to MS and get a bloated OS that will use all of your resources. Even MacOS is a more fair deal than this.
Landlording
Girl Scout cookies
Back up off my thin mints motherfucker.
401k
Rent
Paying for cellular data, in advance, regardless of whether or not you use it with no possibility of refunding any you didn't use.
Commoditized bottled water.
Individualism.
Your ISP is suddenly asking for more money. What are you gonna do? Disconnect from the internet?
Homes as wealth-creators.
Americans take it as received wisdom that homes are meant to generate income through higher valuations over time. We just assume home prices go up over time and if it's not actively increasing in value, the home was a failure.
Many other countries don't treat homes this way. They are dwellings, invest what you want to your liking, but it's not a retirement account.
This focus on wealth generation creates lots of perverse incentives, such as exclusionary zoning, building on lots that are overly large, and suburban sprawl. These don't reflect people's actual, desired form of housing but rather maximize wealth for homeowners at the expense of everyone else.
We have a completely warped view of housing that causes us to be preyed upon by real estate agents, landlords, HOAs and the like.
Capitalism and religion, easily the top two scams.
capitalism
The scam that has passed the test of time. So scamming good, that even communists turn to it!
I would argue that feudalism is a lot more time tested than this garbage system that even in theory is so flawed that it regularly results in global economic crises. Feudalism on the other hand has been considerably more stable throughout the centuries and whether or not you are forced to serve a nobleman or a CEO is not a big difference. So, stop getting scammed and get back to the fields, peasant.
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Patents
Shampoo
capitalism
You really are a power user! Lol
π€£
Insurance.
Eh, no, surely not. Pool the risk and only pay for your share of the risk. Somebody takes some risk in that, because statistics donβt always pan out, even at large, so the risk taker gets a return. Literally couldnβt be further from a βscamβ - itβs one of the few amazing upsides to using money instead of bartering.
Sorry I should say "private insurance" specifically health-insurance.
landlords