Comment by randysalami
2 days ago
You answered your own question in your very second sentence. “For a normal person”. The modern economy increasingly does not cater to the “normal person” and they prove this constantly. Granted “normal people” stopped existing a long time ago. You have poor people, soon to be poor people, and people who think they will soon be rich but will really soon be poor. Of course then you have the rest but they are not people.
> The modern economy increasingly does not cater to the “normal person”
Is that a bad thing? Aren't there always a range of products that cater to different levels of interest?
If you're a "normal person" you don't need a 8000dpi mouse with RGB, or a Louis Vuitton purse, or a large big mac meal.
This is not poverty it is prosperity.
> Is that a bad thing? Aren't there always a range of products that cater to different levels of interest?
Sure.
I think the poster you are replying to is trying to say that the “k-shaped” economy is incentivizing the market to cater only to the high end and simply ignoring the low end.
A few businesses I own are dealing with this issue now. It’s just much more profitable and logistically easier for them to charge what seems like an absurd price, justify it with some inexpensive “white-glove” service, and just ignore the rest of the market.
On the one hand, this is a tribute to modern marketing that high value-add products and services can match with customers more efficiently. On the other hand, it has the potential to create a bizarre “race to the top” such that only suckers will cater to anything other than the top 1% of their target market (in terms of wealth / willingness and capacity to pay).
Where I currently live, this is happening with frightening efficiency with health care. Almost all of the “good” PCP doctors are going concierge, and the concierge prices are increasing at a rapid clip.
I think tesla is all low end right now. 3/y have no dashboard, no stalks and have been minimized from simplicity down to tech poverty.
Normal person as in position in economic distribution, not normal as in not quirky or strange. Lots of quirky people all across the spectrum.
But to be clear, in my example products aren’t the only thing to which the economy doesn’t cater to normal people for (lower-middle class but increasingly middle and lower class). War, corruption, and genocide are all bad for the average person. Generally things that funnel money into hurting or enriching individuals. Both of these are inefficient and the inefficient use of resources, is hurtful to normal people. E.g. enriching an oligarch to build roads could be twice as much road if he takes a 50 percent cut. And the money sitting with him does harm, oppresses people. Food for thought.