Subscriptions and tips are officially out of hand. Everything wants a monthly fee, a suggested tip, or a “support the creator” button blinking like it’s on life support. Nickel-and-dimed into oblivion. Want music? Pay. Want silence? Also pay. Want to exist comfortably? Please insert card.
It’s not that paying for things is wrong, it’s that everything now has its hand out. Apps, services, screens, kiosks, feelings. If you want to live, you have to pay, and if you want to live without constant micro-transactions, that’ll be extra. We’re not consumers anymore, we’re recurring revenue streams with anxiety.
At some point, every company looked at gas, water, electric, and rent—the unavoidable, forever bills—and said, yeah… I want in on that. Not a one-time purchase. Not ownership. A permanent line item. A quiet monthly draft you stop noticing until your account is empty and your patience is gone. Survival used to have a cost. Now it has a subscription model.
We don’t own things anymore. We just rent our way through life, one auto-renewal at a time.