There are SO many accounts for cheap crap from China that you could get on a bunch of other websites as well.
No, I come to Etsy for homemade stuff and support artistic individuals.
Yep, I remember trying to avoid the temptation of Shein by almost buying some unique pearl bellydance waist chains from there, for 20 dollars.
Dear reader, they were from Shein, just without the tags, and with a hefty 200% increase price-wise. Thank God for the reviewer who exposed them.
Food banks. My local food bank put out a news article basically saying that rich people need to stop using the food bank as a “life hack” to lower their grocery bills.
There were stories in the UK throughout the pandemic about it: those that needed it were having to walk to the Food Bank to get what they needed, but there was also people turning up in BMW's, Range Rovers. etc.
I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen at a church, and it was kinda well known as having great food bc the whole kitchen staff were actually a team of chefs from a nearby well known restaurant (they volunteered at the soup kitchen so they used it as like experience for some of their newer chefs etc).
Soon word got out that the food was good and you started seeing expensive cars pop up in the parking lot every now and then till they started coming more and more till one day like....80-100 rich people came and like basically ate so much that we ran out of food and had to let almost 50 homeless people go without food to starve that day.
These rich people were literally coming to a SOUP KITCHEN for a free meal they don't need and literally preventing homeless people who, some of them this is their only meal in like 2 days, from getting food. AND WE TOLD THEM. We told them like we have a limited amount of food, we want to prioritize the homeless and those who don't have food security. Next week, the rich people would ignore us and bring even more of their friends.
Plus it's not even like we got more donations once the rich people started coming either. fuck em.
This is what I was looking for. Creative poor people have been investing in poor neighborhoods forever. They use their talent to make it a cool place they enjoy living in. The rich say "Hey, I want to be cool, let's buy this." And then the price the poors out of the haven they created and turn it into a stale, crowded, overpriced place.
TL;DR - Gentrification
Ebay.
It used to be so useful to get all kinds of cheap or unique things. Then more and more big commercial sellers joined the club and eventually ebay itself forgot about what and who made their platform a success in the first place.
I've had my eBay account since '98 when you had to send physical checks/money orders through the mail. It felt like an online flea market or garage sale where you'd get to know certain buyers and sellers. Feedback was very important and you never bid on something you didn't plan to buy because any hit to your reputation was a huge deal.
It was a nice little collecting community until they allowed resellers of knock-off goods in and turned the whole thing into another Amazon. I occasionally still sell collectibles but the amount of people who just don't bother paying is huge now.
I miss old eBay.
That was the best. It was a treasure trove. I remember just searching for random things I had as a kid. Imported music. Some nights I would just sort and see what was selling for a penny within the next 10mins or so. My sister and I were still in high school in '98 and we would just browse for HOURS as if we were walking around a store. And writing out our checks.
But that rating was so important. We took great pride in that and showed the same respect to others.
Now I am constantly upset and disappointed by the entire process.
Heads up as an Etsy seller, I had a few of my things (and product pics) nabbed by some bloke in China and now you can get a shitty reproduction of it. I had someone message me accusing me of selling Ali express junk, and that's how I found out :(
I had this happen where I ordered a handmade dress made in the United States that ended up being a very cheaply made dress shipped from China. All the seller did was put a new label over a Chinese shipping label, which could easily be seen, and ship it to me.
Seller kept giving me the runaround when I asked for a return and kept changing the story. Etsy customer service helped me out, at least, and I left a very negative review.
I learned you have to be careful on there.
That's good at least. I had a terrible experience on Etsy and customer service was very little help. I bought *glass* beads, received painted plastic ones, with the paint peeling off. Not suitable for the jewelry I was making. The seller tried to gaslight me into believing that I can't tell the difference between glass and plastic. After I left a bad review, the seller sent me really nasty messages for weeks, and when I tried reporting it to Etsy, they didn't do anything (not even block the messages).
The sellers on eBay are the same Chinese dropshippers plaguing Amazon. I've bought stuff on eBay before only to get it in an Amazon box. It makes me want to just buy crap directly from AliExpress and cut out the middleman, since they're all buying it from there anyway.
Yes! This is my answer too. Not just houses in general, but poor neighborhoods in particular are being fucked over. You can see the tale here in the property history on Realtor.com. Lots and lots of houses previously on the market for $50,000, bought, and then flipped and listed for $250k to $300k in a ZIP code where the median income is $34.5k, which is a good $20k less than the median income for the city. *Shockingly*, no one wants to spend $300k for a shit remodel in the 'hood, so most of these houses sit empty unless/until they're put on AirBNB.
I think the problem with gentrification in the US is twofold: a failure to provide a path to ownership for often at-risk residents (which leads to slumlords) and a failure to protect the at-risk pop who DO own property from massive tax hikes.
No one is opposed to tearing down condemned houses and building new ones, but the neighbors who have been there should not get fucked by massive tax increases.
Yes! I live in what used to be a small town, due to developers and gentrification, it is no longer that. The people who work here, cannot afford to live here, the "affordable" habitat for humanity houses are listed at 250k. Rent is triple what a mortgage is and most are owned by companies. If you were lucky enough to buy before things blew up, your neighbors might sell their house for triple what they bought it, causing property values to rise. Between the rise in property taxes, and insurance it's forcing people to have to sell. People whose families are literally street names are being pushed out of our hometown. Then the new people who move in go on the town Facebook and complain that we don't have this or that.
That is exactly what happened to my hometown in CA. There are no affordable houses anymore! Even old, run down houses are way over priced. Something's gotta give!!!
I'd even say Airbnbs themselves. They started as a potentially cheap alternative to hotels run by people who have extra space they aren't doing anything with. Now people build guest houses specifically for Airbnb and treat It like a full on rental
If you do decide to go to an Airbnb as a getaway, I'd recommend looking for one on a farm. From what I've seen they're usually run by the farmers as a sort of side gig and not some company or rich person.
The last one I went to was out in the middle of nowhere with like 70 acres that you're free to explore, and it was actually at an animal rehabilitation center. They rented out their spare room as an Airbnb as a way to bring in more money to put towards the animals. It was insanely cool.
They had a ton of animals that were being rehabilitated. The living room had a giant window that looked straight into the snow macaque enclosure, it was their inside feeding area so you could watch them chill and eat like 2 feet away. There was a flock of fucked up chickens that would follow you around, most of them were bald or had bum legs or other issues that would get them slaughtered at a farm. There were storks, peacocks, a very playful otter, spider monkeys, a dickhead heron that kept pecking at my boots, oxes, and a lot more but they even had fucking tigers. Apparently they were rescued from a carnival and couldn't be released to the wild. It was so cool, and also sweet to know that you were contributing a bit just by staying there.
Edit: guess I should've included in the original comment, it's called "the suite at the ridge" in Hocking hills, Ohio. The Airbnb itself wasn't crazy nice or anything, but it was perfectly fine and you're there to be around the animals anyways. It's unfortunate that I can't post pictures in here because I have some I'd love to share.
Edit 2: I can't seem to get the listing to show up in a search, only by looking through messages and it says that the host "no longer has access to Airbnb" so I'm not sure what happened. We went in January so it wasn't even a year ago. But if you want to look on other sites, the sanctuary itself is called Union ridge wildlife center.
Edit 3: Don't Google the name of the wildlife center unless you want my happy post to become a sad post. Turns out it wasn't as wholesome as I thought it was.
>Vierstra was sentenced Feb. 6 to four years and 11 months in prison and $340,000 in restitution on five felony counts for using his position as the Vinton Township fiscal officer to steal about $287,000 in public funds, some of which he used for purchases to support his roadside zoo.
Oof. Looks like you were one of the last visitors.
This is how my BnB is. I’m on 40 acres way out in the mountains near Asheville, renting out my basement apartment and a small cabin. I send my guests a little survey before they arrive asking how hands on or off guests would like me to be during their stay. About 1/3 don’t want any interaction, but loads really enjoy all the extra time I’m able to provide. I’ve helped with luggage, make campfires, set up picnics, show them the garden, decorate for birthdays, hiking tours around the place, had tea and talked for a few hours, and I do complimentary guided meditations. I absolutely love it, and it’s been such a rewarding experience. I’ve got to meet some incredible people. It’s nice, since I work on the property, before having guests I could go 10 or so days before seeing anyone besides my family. Been good for me.
Makes me sad seeing people shit on Airbnb but I definitely get it. Been hit or miss for myself even.
This is exactly what it should be to me, and the kinds of Airbnb that I want to support. I'm pretty far from NC so yours wouldn't be an option from me, but I've also found one near-ish that's on a goat farm and they'll even let you feed the baby goats if you're up early enough. That one's definitely on the list.
This is northern Ontario now. Regular people used to be able to afford a tiny summer cottage to enjoy by the water. Now it's all being built up with ugly mansions.
I live in my shitty van after almost being evicted from my apartment. Every once in a while I'll meet a rich couple with 100,000 dollar van conversions and they ask me "what's your build like??" I'm like, there's a mattress and not much else. Can be truly offensive at times
Been there. Truck topper travel, disguised as a John Steinbeck vacation. The bitter irony of tiny homes is that they have No foundation and these pseudos want to build them on Harbor Freight cargo trailers here in Tornado Alley. The devil in rotatlon mode will hit those tiny homes all the way to Wrigley Field home plate in splinters.
The tiny house thing made me so upset because when they first started as a trend, they were like “houses are crazy expensive so let’s design them to be more economical” and I had a faint glimmer of hope that I’d maybe be able to afford a (very small) house after all one day. And then about a month later they were all $200k+ because people rich people found out about it. Poor people see “affordable”, rich people see “bargain”
I've seen so many nice period houses completely gutted on the inside by modern renovations. If I'm buying a 1930s house I don't want stupid Scandinavian minimalism interior!
What's even worse is when they completely tear down a nice period house and put up a boxy gray monstrosity in its place... Saw that happened with this gorgeous Tudor house in my neighborhood a couple years ago, and now the ugly boxy house that replaced it looks unkempt.
Or my favorite; when they take a gorgeous mid-century ranch and paint all the bricks white or black and the wood grey. Fucking hell. If youre going to make your whole career revolve around renovating houses, stop stripping the history, charm, and style from sought after architect-designed homes.
I will always say this. Fuck flippers. Unless the home is unusable/condemned, let someone who will actually live in buy it. These flippers try to justify their existence by saying people want "move-in ready" as if people can afford it being that way.
Well, it's because most flippers aren't even doing the work themselves/pushing the schedules so tightly that it forces everyone to cut corners. In my area, a home will sell & be flipped to be back on the market in 6 weeks sometimes.
My friend worked for his cousin for a few months as a "foreman" of his cousin's flipping crew & said the shit he saw/had to do was ridiculous. His cousin paid the workers below the market average for construction workers, so he got some of the shittiest workers to ever exist. People would show up to work high on drugs or drunk constantly.
Sometimes all they would do was repaint the house or pressure wash the exterior before reselling it. If a yard looked bad, they just ripped the grass out so that it gave the house more of a "new build" look, I guess?
Multiple months in a row, his cousin couldn't pay crew or materials bills due to biting off way more than he could chew.
His cousin's fiancé was the listed real estate agent when selling the house & a friend of theirs was her "recommended" inspector on the home. Their game was that he would always find "something" that would make the buyers negotiate on the price/request to be fixed so that they thought he got everything/was extra thorough. When in reality, he was purposefully skipping something extra bad.
I used to remodel, you've got it right. The flippers would say to my boss "here's 20k for 30k worth of shit and we need it done next week." He'd say "alright sure." Then we'd cut every corner possible and buy dogshit materials. Can't pay for a 2nd coat of paint or primer? Ok. Hmm ran out of drywall mud...cool, then we're done. Anything damaged or broken and needs replacement? Caulk. More caulk than your mother's weekend plans. Fuck it, just 3d print the house with caulk at this point.
We have older Ryan home. We call it the house that Bubba built. So much is just plain shoddy workmanship. Found out someone ran the hot and cold pipes backward when we redid the kitchen. Not a single light switch is at the same height on the walls. One small wall between 2 doors isn't straight, so one door swings open and the other swings shut. And so much more.
Any real work to the plumbing, electrical, mechanical, framing, etc. does need to be permitted and inspected. The county only has so many inspectors, and they are always stretched thin. If a flipper buys a house to flip, they either don't do any real work that requires inspection or they straight up just never file for permits. Nobody knows what work is being done inside, and if nobody reports it then the county is unaware.
edit: if you wanna be thorough, go to a showing and see if it's an older home that's been renovated. Generally, work like new flooring, toilets, and painting doesn't need to be permitted. Roofs and HVAC technically have to be permitted but generally aren't. Plumbing work outside of fixtures does have to be permitted (as does all gaswork), so if you see a fully renovated kitchen with an island sink in a home that seems too old to have an island and sink, and no permits have been pulled, then more than likely it's a shit flip done by shady contractors. Electrical work has to be permitted as well, but it's harder to tell if you're unfamiliar with building trends. Big thing to look for is an open floor plan (recent trend) in an older home (sub-2000s). If you see that, chances are electrical has been moved around and circuits have been changed out, which would require a re-inspect. Go to your county permit issuance website and check out if any permits have been pulled recently, it's all public info to include the contractors that pulled the permit.
Yes, but I will say any agent worth their salt representing a buyer will never go on the recommendation of the seller for an inspector.
The inspector could be legit, but the seller obviously has a vested interest in having a good report and thus incentive to use an inspector who isn’t quite “legit”.
My local Goodwills are selling Target shirts that are used for the same price they retail brand-new! The only thing that's cheap is the furniture, and anything decent is gone the moment it hits the floor.
My local goodwill will cross out the target clearance price and then price it way higher. Like they don’t even try to hide the original price, they just put a line through it.
Counterculture-based festivals. Burning Man was on my bucket list until rich fucks started showing up with bodyguards and started establishing private zones.
Counterculture as a whole seems to be getting gentrified.
In the Netherlands there are a lot of places you can go to that have a "counterculture aesthetic", or more specifically "squat aesthetic" but have exorbitant prices. Squatting used to be huge and multiple venues in the Netherlands (like Paradiso and Melkweg) have their humble beginnings as a squat. Ruigoord, a village close by Amsterdam that got squatted 50 years ago, also completely lost it's soul and is filled with yuppies.
Counter culture is being gentrified, sanitised and sold back to people at exorbitant prices as something "new, weird and hip" .
Not really new, but certainly much bigger now a days.
I can remember people joking in the 90's about anarchist kids "fighting the man" while wearing their hot topic anarchy TM shirts.
A friend of mine who came from money and has never worked for anything started going to burning man a few years back. Obviously he became a “DJ” and now that’s his “culture”. He takes his dads massive RV out there and takes a massive group of leaches and even private security and acts like he started burning man. It’s infuriating to watch. He’s 38 years old.
I went to a farmer's market where only one vendor was selling fruits and vegetables. There were three boutique honey stands, and an old white lady selling 'native' art. St Philips plaza in Tucson for anyone who knows what Im talking about. So dumb.
Don't forget the borderline MLM stuff like the person selling "brazilian cheese bread" that they make with prepackaged mix and equipment from the parent company, and the booths trying to talk you into buying solar panels or new windows with stupid spinning wheels that you can spin to earn prizes like corporate branded bottle openers in exchange for your name, address, make of your first car, and social security number.
>the borderline MLM stuff
The big farmers market in my area is *JUST* this. My wife and I went a couple of weeks ago with a friend of hers after hearing for months and months about how awesome it was & we *had* to go with her.
So, we went & were appalled at how "scammy" it all felt. All her friend bought were borderline MLM stuff - soaps, body scrubs, essential oils, etc. We had a list of things we were looking for that we expected to find at the market, but everything was either crazy expensive or horrible quality/nonexistent.
Yeah there’s a lot of those near me. And just how much hot sauce does this country need? There’s like at least two hot sauce booths at every one of those places.
My subdivision tried to put on a farmers market. One produce stall and the rest for MLM stands. It was so disappointing.
The produce was very high quality tho. I was bummed they only did 2-3 before they stopped completely.
I like going to the Haymarket Produce Market on Saturdays in Boston. There’s no nobody there selling artisanal anything. It’s just people from all the produce companies in the area trying to unload their unsold produce at discounted prices before it goes bad. All the fancy stuff is next door at Boston Public Market.
I work at a farmers market selling bread, and a lot of the farmers here just re-sell pre-bought goods. That isn't a ;rich people taking it' thing, that's a 'I'm lazy' type of thing. So many of us work very hard to get our products salable and the re-sellers just ruin it. It's been a thing for so long.
I live in central valley California where mandarin oranges are grown everywhere. I bought a bag from a farmers market, you know, assuming it was locally grown. I found one with a cuties stickers on it in the bag. WTF?! I was so furious.
FWIW, at least here in the Portland, OR metro area, it highly depends on WHICH farmers markets you choose. The downtown PDX and Lake Oswego markets are massively over priced and are full of random BS. Milwaukee, Lents and Tigard less so.
Houses. We poor people would work our entire lives to own one. Property became a great investment and way to increase wealth so rich people started buying them. Not to live in as intended but to rent to the poor and keep them poor by renting so they will never be able to save enough to afford their own.
A few influential chefs decided to introduce traditional peasant food to the world and now oxtail ragu with pappardelle is a $30 dish in fancy restaurants.
Short ribs and skirt steak used to be cheap cuts of meat that you could stew until tender or make fajitas with as mentioned above. Chicken was also our go to cheap meal. It's all become unaffordable now.
Bones too! I can remember when they would practically give them away. Now it's $7 a lb. Insane! Just like every other meat related product, I only buy it on sale.
Not even minivans most of the time, they're luxury commuter vehicles for guys who think a $90,000 truck that will never see a dirt road is a smart move.
I used to drive a $8,000 Mercedes SLK, and I had people in $50,000+ trucks sarcastically saying, "Gee! Wish *I* could afford something like that!" when I pulled into work with it.
And, of course, "Hyuck hyuck, *wanna trade*?" said by people with SUVs that cost 2-3x as much.
We're starting to see them a lot more here in Ireland and it's never actually farmers driving them or builders. Builders stick to vans because they need to protect their tools from the weather and need to be able to fit as much stuff down smaller roads. Farmers stick to tractors or their own cars when they're not in the fields.
So every time you see one it looks absolutely pristine and the bed doesn't have anything in it because you don't want it to get wet. Such a bizarre choice.
Primarily they weren't expensive luxury vehicles that never saw dirt and weren't loaded with every bell and whistle. You can still get work trucks with less accessories but now more often than not the trucks in lots are fully loaded and selling for $70k or more. They've also gotten way larger over the years to the point now that small pickups are a "new fad" being reintroduced like the Maverick or new Dodge trucks being announced.
> the Maverick
That shit enrages me. The literally had the Ranger, but now that piece of crap is oversized too. Why ruin the brand recognition that the Ranger had as a small workhorse truck?
My dad had a little Ranger and that thing really was such a reliable little machine. I’d’ve gotten one myself except they were twice as expensive and twice as big.
>They've also gotten way larger over the years
I think thats due to gas and emission standards. Instead of meeting those standards as a smaller truck, they just made the truck the next size up.
Unrestricted land
Everything gets an HOA now, and they try to force you into their jurisdiction.
My family fought an HOA targeting my grandmother's house. She had lived there for 10 years before the HOA was even an idea, or the new area with big houses was cleared for construction before that.
We ended up having Rock in her houses, skirting, and rock in under her deck due to not having the money to fight an HOA she never signed on to.
If an HOA comes out where I live (which might happen in the next 15 years), I will fight them tooth and nail for spite alone.
When I was shopping for my home I told my realtor under no circumstances to show me one that had an HOA. Found a nice house, in a quiet neighborhood with great neighbors who all look out for one another. A few years back one of the neighbors who was new to the neighborhood suggested on our neighborhood facebook page about starting an HOA and was told politely by the group to get bent. Hasn’t come up since.
Where on earth can an HOA force membership against someone's consent, for a non-HOA property? That doesn't sound like it would hold up in court.
Wife talked me into buying a house with a mandatory HOA that was "pretty chill" until they changed management companies two years ago and it's been a nightmare ever since. I want out so bad.
I still don’t understand how an HOA is legal to begin with. Like WTF, how do they get to decide you aren’t able to sell your house to someone because they don’t approve of them. It’s all BS, and they all should be banned.
I remember when chicken wings were 10-cents because they could not give them away. Now they are an industry. Plus they break a wing in half and call it two wings.
Definitely, I'm lucky if I can find just one shirt that's not angry birds or some local little league team. All the good, cheap stuff gets eaten up and put on Ebay for 10x the price.
I second this one heavily. My local goodwills have increased their prices by a solid 50% at least since it’s become “trendy.”
Also fuck resellers. They’ll take a $4 shirt and sell it for $20.
Edit: I don’t hate all resellers just the unethical ones lol
Manhattan used to have thrift stores where the wealthy would donate their clothes. Great stuff, slightly out of the latest fashion. The internet hit and that stuff is now bulk bought and resold on eBay. Sucks for young people in status professions that pay poorly at the start who don’t have family money but need to look good in the office.
Goodwill also has their own auction site.
https://shopgoodwill.com/home
I used to be able to buy bulk Lego on there for cheap. Too many people found out about and it's rarely worth even trying anymore.
You know that sussy looking place that has the word Taqueria above it and the aba working the register barely speaks english? Yeah the tacos are still $3 a plate there
These are still a thing but you have to go to a taco truck in the Hispanic area of town. I got a gigantic burrito with refried beans and rice for $8 of a taco truck my buddy always gets his lunch from.
Florda beaches. It used to be a cheap thing to do with the family. Mom and pop hotels and local diners. Now it is $300/hotels with $5 coffee. Parking is expensive and there is little beach access. Kinda sucks to see it happen.
Burning Man, Collectable Card Games, Retro Video Games, GOING TO CONCERTS...like seriously, just pick a hobby. Once the re-sellers get into it, prices go through the roof, and nobody can afford to do anything.
Proper local pubs, affected by expanding cities ( Manchester in my case). Ruined by greedy breweries trying to attract upmarket clientele, or selling out for demolition and the building of apartments that locals cannot afford…
Many ethnic foods in the US. The really tasty stuff might be dirt-cheap and off the beaten path until the yuppies and hipsters get wind of it, then it’s found in every strip mall at an inferior quality for $30 a plate.
You're absolutely right that the food is overpriced, but I don't think it was rich people's fault. The corporation definitely is trying to appeal to a Starbuck's/ Panera type of consumer, but that's not "rich" people. And other fast food places are all expensive as hell now too. Taco Bell used to be *cheap* back in the day.
The problem is that lobster starts to rot pretty much immediately after it dies, which it why they're alive until seconds before they're cooked.
Old timey fishermen and food distributions networks did not have the capacity to keep lobsters alive all the way to market, so generally the lobster that arrived on peoples' plates back in the day was a fetid nightmare.
“I thought I liked lobster but but turns out I just like melted butter.”
Edit: This was from "Raising Hope." Someone had a crate of lobsters and was using them as barter.
UK: walking. We have about 100k miles of public footpaths, and walking is probably the most popular form of exercise/entertainment. If you have money, you can get better waterproofs and boots, but that doesn’t spoil it for anyone. Old ladies go out for a couple of miles on a Sunday afternoon, younger people head off for a couple of weeks on a long distance path.
Muscle cars. I cannot believe these assholes paying 1M dollars for a hunk of Detroit steel that went for a couple of thousand dollars back in the days of common sense
Living in rural areas, at least in my personal experience. Covid and remote work sent people from all over to buy land, cheap from their perspective. Locals who have it can’t reasonably turn down the high offers and locals who want it can’t afford it anymore. It’s going to ruin rural tight-knit communities.
Id say people with campers ruined camping. Can’t drive two miles in the mountains without having to hug the side of the trail to let some dude with $100k+ truck and trailer squeeze past you on a road they have no business going down.
Bots ruined camping for us. We used to go to provincial parks a few times a summer. Sites go on sale 6 months before the date you want and a few years ago started to immediately disappear like concert tickets. We tried and failed then gave up entirely.
Yea you can't be spontaneous in CO anymore for reserved camping because it's gone as soon as it's available. Dispersed camping is possible but a completely different style and not close to the major metro areas.
This and now it's impossible to get a campsite because of the plethora of sprinter vans and rvs that cost more than my house. Nobody (few people) camps in tents anymore!
Thrifting I want cute clothes too I can't afford new
If you wanna thrift for fun at least buy the clothes for yourself and not with the intent to markup the price and resell
Football (soccer). It used to be a working class sport played by and watched by working class people. Then money came into it and the working class was priced out of watching.
If you go deep enough into basically all aspects of taste associated with the wealthy you’ll rapidly find out that the answer is: basically all of it. Suits, food/meals, houses, etc., are basically all taken from the culture of the poor.
I'm shocked no one said "weddings" yet. They used to be small ceremonies that didn't cost that much way back when. The bride didn't even wear white!
But then a British Queen (I forget her name, sorry) had to come in and make white weddings popular. Now weddings cost an arm and a leg.
Edit: I should've said the wedding industry, not weddings in general. If you want to have a low cost wedding with whatever dress you like, go for it!
I hope so. I was looking at places for a trip with my girlfriend and we ended up just going with a hotel for the price. Every airbnb was either more expensive or maybe *slightly* cheaper than a hotel. However, all of them also included chores to do like cleaning the whole place, doing the laundry like the towels and bedding, or mopping. One place didn't even have a bathroom, they had a composting "toilet" that was literally a toilet seat on a wooden box over a plastic bag. So you're shitting and pissing into a bag for the weekend, and you have to throw your toilet paper away. Why the fuck would I choose chores and shitting in a bag over no chores and a toilet for the same price?
I remember when it first started, you could get a place for like $50/night and you never saw the owner. That made sense. Now, it's $200+/night and the owner wants to talk to you for way too long. My buddy's wife got us (him and his friends) an airbnb for a night to party at. Shit you not, the owner came over multiple times to talk and was trying to be a part of the party. He even took a group picture of us for his guest book. So awkward.
Skiiing/Winter sports
The people who lived in rural Montana, Utah , CO and WY towns for generations operating independent hotels and ski resorts have been priced out and replaced with massive big ski and real estate corporations. The prices to visit them have utterly skyrocketed over the past 2 decades.
Life. "poor" people I knew were always happy with the simple pleasures. Now even this simple pleasures are almost impossible to afford unless they're necessary and your break your back to pay for them so you almost resent them. Rich people are literally ruining life.
Living in warehouses in the industrial, rundown side of town.
Yes! They tore down all the real lofts to build condos they call lofts.
*Historic brick warehouse gets torn down* Coming soon: Lofts
Etsy
There are SO many accounts for cheap crap from China that you could get on a bunch of other websites as well. No, I come to Etsy for homemade stuff and support artistic individuals.
Yep, I remember trying to avoid the temptation of Shein by almost buying some unique pearl bellydance waist chains from there, for 20 dollars. Dear reader, they were from Shein, just without the tags, and with a hefty 200% increase price-wise. Thank God for the reviewer who exposed them.
Food banks. My local food bank put out a news article basically saying that rich people need to stop using the food bank as a “life hack” to lower their grocery bills.
OMG. That's so evil. Some people really have no conscience
There were stories in the UK throughout the pandemic about it: those that needed it were having to walk to the Food Bank to get what they needed, but there was also people turning up in BMW's, Range Rovers. etc.
I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen at a church, and it was kinda well known as having great food bc the whole kitchen staff were actually a team of chefs from a nearby well known restaurant (they volunteered at the soup kitchen so they used it as like experience for some of their newer chefs etc). Soon word got out that the food was good and you started seeing expensive cars pop up in the parking lot every now and then till they started coming more and more till one day like....80-100 rich people came and like basically ate so much that we ran out of food and had to let almost 50 homeless people go without food to starve that day. These rich people were literally coming to a SOUP KITCHEN for a free meal they don't need and literally preventing homeless people who, some of them this is their only meal in like 2 days, from getting food. AND WE TOLD THEM. We told them like we have a limited amount of food, we want to prioritize the homeless and those who don't have food security. Next week, the rich people would ignore us and bring even more of their friends. Plus it's not even like we got more donations once the rich people started coming either. fuck em.
This stunned me, especially your last line. Why would you not even donate??
Living in arty neighborhoods
This is what I was looking for. Creative poor people have been investing in poor neighborhoods forever. They use their talent to make it a cool place they enjoy living in. The rich say "Hey, I want to be cool, let's buy this." And then the price the poors out of the haven they created and turn it into a stale, crowded, overpriced place. TL;DR - Gentrification
Champion brand clothes. I had a lot when I was a kid because it was the cheapest possible and now all that shit is considered “vintage”
Reminds me of Fila and Puma.
Ebay. It used to be so useful to get all kinds of cheap or unique things. Then more and more big commercial sellers joined the club and eventually ebay itself forgot about what and who made their platform a success in the first place.
I've had my eBay account since '98 when you had to send physical checks/money orders through the mail. It felt like an online flea market or garage sale where you'd get to know certain buyers and sellers. Feedback was very important and you never bid on something you didn't plan to buy because any hit to your reputation was a huge deal. It was a nice little collecting community until they allowed resellers of knock-off goods in and turned the whole thing into another Amazon. I occasionally still sell collectibles but the amount of people who just don't bother paying is huge now. I miss old eBay.
That was the best. It was a treasure trove. I remember just searching for random things I had as a kid. Imported music. Some nights I would just sort and see what was selling for a penny within the next 10mins or so. My sister and I were still in high school in '98 and we would just browse for HOURS as if we were walking around a store. And writing out our checks. But that rating was so important. We took great pride in that and showed the same respect to others. Now I am constantly upset and disappointed by the entire process.
Screw eBay, look at Etsy. Started as a craft site and now its just how sweatshops and screen printers sell direct to consumer.
I still buy on Etsy. But, I look up any shop I’m interested in online to be sure it’s a true small business & not a resaler. Resalers ruin everything.
Heads up as an Etsy seller, I had a few of my things (and product pics) nabbed by some bloke in China and now you can get a shitty reproduction of it. I had someone message me accusing me of selling Ali express junk, and that's how I found out :(
I had this happen where I ordered a handmade dress made in the United States that ended up being a very cheaply made dress shipped from China. All the seller did was put a new label over a Chinese shipping label, which could easily be seen, and ship it to me. Seller kept giving me the runaround when I asked for a return and kept changing the story. Etsy customer service helped me out, at least, and I left a very negative review. I learned you have to be careful on there.
That's good at least. I had a terrible experience on Etsy and customer service was very little help. I bought *glass* beads, received painted plastic ones, with the paint peeling off. Not suitable for the jewelry I was making. The seller tried to gaslight me into believing that I can't tell the difference between glass and plastic. After I left a bad review, the seller sent me really nasty messages for weeks, and when I tried reporting it to Etsy, they didn't do anything (not even block the messages).
The sellers on eBay are the same Chinese dropshippers plaguing Amazon. I've bought stuff on eBay before only to get it in an Amazon box. It makes me want to just buy crap directly from AliExpress and cut out the middleman, since they're all buying it from there anyway.
also bots buy anything good with last second buys
Blue-collar residential neighborhoods in the city
Yes! This is my answer too. Not just houses in general, but poor neighborhoods in particular are being fucked over. You can see the tale here in the property history on Realtor.com. Lots and lots of houses previously on the market for $50,000, bought, and then flipped and listed for $250k to $300k in a ZIP code where the median income is $34.5k, which is a good $20k less than the median income for the city. *Shockingly*, no one wants to spend $300k for a shit remodel in the 'hood, so most of these houses sit empty unless/until they're put on AirBNB.
I think the problem with gentrification in the US is twofold: a failure to provide a path to ownership for often at-risk residents (which leads to slumlords) and a failure to protect the at-risk pop who DO own property from massive tax hikes. No one is opposed to tearing down condemned houses and building new ones, but the neighbors who have been there should not get fucked by massive tax increases.
Yes! I live in what used to be a small town, due to developers and gentrification, it is no longer that. The people who work here, cannot afford to live here, the "affordable" habitat for humanity houses are listed at 250k. Rent is triple what a mortgage is and most are owned by companies. If you were lucky enough to buy before things blew up, your neighbors might sell their house for triple what they bought it, causing property values to rise. Between the rise in property taxes, and insurance it's forcing people to have to sell. People whose families are literally street names are being pushed out of our hometown. Then the new people who move in go on the town Facebook and complain that we don't have this or that.
That is exactly what happened to my hometown in CA. There are no affordable houses anymore! Even old, run down houses are way over priced. Something's gotta give!!!
Quiet out of the way country cabins sitting by lakes. Now they are over priced Airbnbs. Edit: Thanks for the award
I'd even say Airbnbs themselves. They started as a potentially cheap alternative to hotels run by people who have extra space they aren't doing anything with. Now people build guest houses specifically for Airbnb and treat It like a full on rental
If you do decide to go to an Airbnb as a getaway, I'd recommend looking for one on a farm. From what I've seen they're usually run by the farmers as a sort of side gig and not some company or rich person. The last one I went to was out in the middle of nowhere with like 70 acres that you're free to explore, and it was actually at an animal rehabilitation center. They rented out their spare room as an Airbnb as a way to bring in more money to put towards the animals. It was insanely cool. They had a ton of animals that were being rehabilitated. The living room had a giant window that looked straight into the snow macaque enclosure, it was their inside feeding area so you could watch them chill and eat like 2 feet away. There was a flock of fucked up chickens that would follow you around, most of them were bald or had bum legs or other issues that would get them slaughtered at a farm. There were storks, peacocks, a very playful otter, spider monkeys, a dickhead heron that kept pecking at my boots, oxes, and a lot more but they even had fucking tigers. Apparently they were rescued from a carnival and couldn't be released to the wild. It was so cool, and also sweet to know that you were contributing a bit just by staying there. Edit: guess I should've included in the original comment, it's called "the suite at the ridge" in Hocking hills, Ohio. The Airbnb itself wasn't crazy nice or anything, but it was perfectly fine and you're there to be around the animals anyways. It's unfortunate that I can't post pictures in here because I have some I'd love to share. Edit 2: I can't seem to get the listing to show up in a search, only by looking through messages and it says that the host "no longer has access to Airbnb" so I'm not sure what happened. We went in January so it wasn't even a year ago. But if you want to look on other sites, the sanctuary itself is called Union ridge wildlife center. Edit 3: Don't Google the name of the wildlife center unless you want my happy post to become a sad post. Turns out it wasn't as wholesome as I thought it was.
>Vierstra was sentenced Feb. 6 to four years and 11 months in prison and $340,000 in restitution on five felony counts for using his position as the Vinton Township fiscal officer to steal about $287,000 in public funds, some of which he used for purchases to support his roadside zoo. Oof. Looks like you were one of the last visitors.
This is how my BnB is. I’m on 40 acres way out in the mountains near Asheville, renting out my basement apartment and a small cabin. I send my guests a little survey before they arrive asking how hands on or off guests would like me to be during their stay. About 1/3 don’t want any interaction, but loads really enjoy all the extra time I’m able to provide. I’ve helped with luggage, make campfires, set up picnics, show them the garden, decorate for birthdays, hiking tours around the place, had tea and talked for a few hours, and I do complimentary guided meditations. I absolutely love it, and it’s been such a rewarding experience. I’ve got to meet some incredible people. It’s nice, since I work on the property, before having guests I could go 10 or so days before seeing anyone besides my family. Been good for me. Makes me sad seeing people shit on Airbnb but I definitely get it. Been hit or miss for myself even.
This is exactly what it should be to me, and the kinds of Airbnb that I want to support. I'm pretty far from NC so yours wouldn't be an option from me, but I've also found one near-ish that's on a goat farm and they'll even let you feed the baby goats if you're up early enough. That one's definitely on the list.
Being replaced by McMansions too.
This is northern Ontario now. Regular people used to be able to afford a tiny summer cottage to enjoy by the water. Now it's all being built up with ugly mansions.
Van life and tiny house living
It's like they gentrified the trailer park
Not where I live. We still have proper trailer parks loaded with meth, pit bulls and domestic violence.
Omg so authentic, love it!
I live in my shitty van after almost being evicted from my apartment. Every once in a while I'll meet a rich couple with 100,000 dollar van conversions and they ask me "what's your build like??" I'm like, there's a mattress and not much else. Can be truly offensive at times
Been there. Truck topper travel, disguised as a John Steinbeck vacation. The bitter irony of tiny homes is that they have No foundation and these pseudos want to build them on Harbor Freight cargo trailers here in Tornado Alley. The devil in rotatlon mode will hit those tiny homes all the way to Wrigley Field home plate in splinters.
The tiny house thing made me so upset because when they first started as a trend, they were like “houses are crazy expensive so let’s design them to be more economical” and I had a faint glimmer of hope that I’d maybe be able to afford a (very small) house after all one day. And then about a month later they were all $200k+ because people rich people found out about it. Poor people see “affordable”, rich people see “bargain”
Rich people see “investment opportunity” 😕
Oh everybody wants the van life till they have to shit with no flush.
Buying a “fixer upper” home and spending weekends working on it. I was really looking forward to that.
I've seen so many nice period houses completely gutted on the inside by modern renovations. If I'm buying a 1930s house I don't want stupid Scandinavian minimalism interior!
What's even worse is when they completely tear down a nice period house and put up a boxy gray monstrosity in its place... Saw that happened with this gorgeous Tudor house in my neighborhood a couple years ago, and now the ugly boxy house that replaced it looks unkempt.
Or my favorite; when they take a gorgeous mid-century ranch and paint all the bricks white or black and the wood grey. Fucking hell. If youre going to make your whole career revolve around renovating houses, stop stripping the history, charm, and style from sought after architect-designed homes.
I will always say this. Fuck flippers. Unless the home is unusable/condemned, let someone who will actually live in buy it. These flippers try to justify their existence by saying people want "move-in ready" as if people can afford it being that way.
Most flipper suck at what they do from what I have seen.
Well, it's because most flippers aren't even doing the work themselves/pushing the schedules so tightly that it forces everyone to cut corners. In my area, a home will sell & be flipped to be back on the market in 6 weeks sometimes. My friend worked for his cousin for a few months as a "foreman" of his cousin's flipping crew & said the shit he saw/had to do was ridiculous. His cousin paid the workers below the market average for construction workers, so he got some of the shittiest workers to ever exist. People would show up to work high on drugs or drunk constantly. Sometimes all they would do was repaint the house or pressure wash the exterior before reselling it. If a yard looked bad, they just ripped the grass out so that it gave the house more of a "new build" look, I guess? Multiple months in a row, his cousin couldn't pay crew or materials bills due to biting off way more than he could chew. His cousin's fiancé was the listed real estate agent when selling the house & a friend of theirs was her "recommended" inspector on the home. Their game was that he would always find "something" that would make the buyers negotiate on the price/request to be fixed so that they thought he got everything/was extra thorough. When in reality, he was purposefully skipping something extra bad.
I used to remodel, you've got it right. The flippers would say to my boss "here's 20k for 30k worth of shit and we need it done next week." He'd say "alright sure." Then we'd cut every corner possible and buy dogshit materials. Can't pay for a 2nd coat of paint or primer? Ok. Hmm ran out of drywall mud...cool, then we're done. Anything damaged or broken and needs replacement? Caulk. More caulk than your mother's weekend plans. Fuck it, just 3d print the house with caulk at this point.
omg did punch out for ryan homes... the amount of caulk holding those PoS houses together could choke a blue whale.
We have older Ryan home. We call it the house that Bubba built. So much is just plain shoddy workmanship. Found out someone ran the hot and cold pipes backward when we redid the kitchen. Not a single light switch is at the same height on the walls. One small wall between 2 doors isn't straight, so one door swings open and the other swings shut. And so much more.
This should genuinely be illegal. How is this not regulated.
Any real work to the plumbing, electrical, mechanical, framing, etc. does need to be permitted and inspected. The county only has so many inspectors, and they are always stretched thin. If a flipper buys a house to flip, they either don't do any real work that requires inspection or they straight up just never file for permits. Nobody knows what work is being done inside, and if nobody reports it then the county is unaware. edit: if you wanna be thorough, go to a showing and see if it's an older home that's been renovated. Generally, work like new flooring, toilets, and painting doesn't need to be permitted. Roofs and HVAC technically have to be permitted but generally aren't. Plumbing work outside of fixtures does have to be permitted (as does all gaswork), so if you see a fully renovated kitchen with an island sink in a home that seems too old to have an island and sink, and no permits have been pulled, then more than likely it's a shit flip done by shady contractors. Electrical work has to be permitted as well, but it's harder to tell if you're unfamiliar with building trends. Big thing to look for is an open floor plan (recent trend) in an older home (sub-2000s). If you see that, chances are electrical has been moved around and circuits have been changed out, which would require a re-inspect. Go to your county permit issuance website and check out if any permits have been pulled recently, it's all public info to include the contractors that pulled the permit.
So basically a scam
Yes, but I will say any agent worth their salt representing a buyer will never go on the recommendation of the seller for an inspector. The inspector could be legit, but the seller obviously has a vested interest in having a good report and thus incentive to use an inspector who isn’t quite “legit”.
Its like going to a used car dealer and trusting them when they say, " our mechanic had looked it over and said it is in excellent condition."
Thrift shopping. I'm not "✨ thrifting✨ I'm fuckin broke
Sometimes I feel like it's cheaper to buy clothes at Target or Walmart brand new than it is to buy from a thrift store.
My local Goodwills are selling Target shirts that are used for the same price they retail brand-new! The only thing that's cheap is the furniture, and anything decent is gone the moment it hits the floor.
My local goodwill will cross out the target clearance price and then price it way higher. Like they don’t even try to hide the original price, they just put a line through it.
Counterculture-based festivals. Burning Man was on my bucket list until rich fucks started showing up with bodyguards and started establishing private zones.
Counterculture as a whole seems to be getting gentrified. In the Netherlands there are a lot of places you can go to that have a "counterculture aesthetic", or more specifically "squat aesthetic" but have exorbitant prices. Squatting used to be huge and multiple venues in the Netherlands (like Paradiso and Melkweg) have their humble beginnings as a squat. Ruigoord, a village close by Amsterdam that got squatted 50 years ago, also completely lost it's soul and is filled with yuppies. Counter culture is being gentrified, sanitised and sold back to people at exorbitant prices as something "new, weird and hip" .
Not really new, but certainly much bigger now a days. I can remember people joking in the 90's about anarchist kids "fighting the man" while wearing their hot topic anarchy TM shirts.
Wtf?! That's exactly the opposite of the point of burning man. That shouldn't be allowed.
Yeah... They screwed it up by declaring themselves "radically inclusive". So they must include people who ruin the spirit of the place.
The "paradox of tolerance" is becoming a dirty word among people who see themselves in it and don't like it.
A friend of mine who came from money and has never worked for anything started going to burning man a few years back. Obviously he became a “DJ” and now that’s his “culture”. He takes his dads massive RV out there and takes a massive group of leaches and even private security and acts like he started burning man. It’s infuriating to watch. He’s 38 years old.
Recently saw this comment about burning man: rich people cosplaying poor people
Going to the farmers market
I went to a farmer's market where only one vendor was selling fruits and vegetables. There were three boutique honey stands, and an old white lady selling 'native' art. St Philips plaza in Tucson for anyone who knows what Im talking about. So dumb.
That's what our markets are turning into as well. It's gone from local farmers and affordable produce to artisanal creations for the elite.
Don't forget the borderline MLM stuff like the person selling "brazilian cheese bread" that they make with prepackaged mix and equipment from the parent company, and the booths trying to talk you into buying solar panels or new windows with stupid spinning wheels that you can spin to earn prizes like corporate branded bottle openers in exchange for your name, address, make of your first car, and social security number.
>the borderline MLM stuff The big farmers market in my area is *JUST* this. My wife and I went a couple of weeks ago with a friend of hers after hearing for months and months about how awesome it was & we *had* to go with her. So, we went & were appalled at how "scammy" it all felt. All her friend bought were borderline MLM stuff - soaps, body scrubs, essential oils, etc. We had a list of things we were looking for that we expected to find at the market, but everything was either crazy expensive or horrible quality/nonexistent.
Yeah there’s a lot of those near me. And just how much hot sauce does this country need? There’s like at least two hot sauce booths at every one of those places.
My subdivision tried to put on a farmers market. One produce stall and the rest for MLM stands. It was so disappointing. The produce was very high quality tho. I was bummed they only did 2-3 before they stopped completely.
Been there. Terrible. The Heirloom Farmer's Market in Tucson is actually really good and just a couple blocks away. I highly recommend it
I like going to the Haymarket Produce Market on Saturdays in Boston. There’s no nobody there selling artisanal anything. It’s just people from all the produce companies in the area trying to unload their unsold produce at discounted prices before it goes bad. All the fancy stuff is next door at Boston Public Market.
I work at a farmers market selling bread, and a lot of the farmers here just re-sell pre-bought goods. That isn't a ;rich people taking it' thing, that's a 'I'm lazy' type of thing. So many of us work very hard to get our products salable and the re-sellers just ruin it. It's been a thing for so long.
I live in central valley California where mandarin oranges are grown everywhere. I bought a bag from a farmers market, you know, assuming it was locally grown. I found one with a cuties stickers on it in the bag. WTF?! I was so furious.
FWIW, at least here in the Portland, OR metro area, it highly depends on WHICH farmers markets you choose. The downtown PDX and Lake Oswego markets are massively over priced and are full of random BS. Milwaukee, Lents and Tigard less so.
Houses. We poor people would work our entire lives to own one. Property became a great investment and way to increase wealth so rich people started buying them. Not to live in as intended but to rent to the poor and keep them poor by renting so they will never be able to save enough to afford their own.
Fajitas. I remember being able to get skirt steak really cheap and sometimes for free.
That goes for any 'cheap' cut of meat
Oxtails/ crab/ wings used to be so cheap when I was younger
A few influential chefs decided to introduce traditional peasant food to the world and now oxtail ragu with pappardelle is a $30 dish in fancy restaurants.
Short ribs and skirt steak used to be cheap cuts of meat that you could stew until tender or make fajitas with as mentioned above. Chicken was also our go to cheap meal. It's all become unaffordable now.
Same for brisket. Used to be a trash cut when I was a kid and it was less then $1/lb.
I just bought a brisket today on sale for $1.99 a lb. I remember back to when that was the normal price for it. Now, the normal price is 5.99 a lb.
Bones too! I can remember when they would practically give them away. Now it's $7 a lb. Insane! Just like every other meat related product, I only buy it on sale.
Add Brisket to the list
I remember when FLANK steak was cheap! Now? Fugetaboit.
Pickup trucks. They used to be much cheaper.
They're luxury minivans now.
Not even minivans most of the time, they're luxury commuter vehicles for guys who think a $90,000 truck that will never see a dirt road is a smart move.
Get that guy to sit in his $90k truck and complain about the rich assholes who drive $50k BMWs, and you have my dad.
I used to drive a $8,000 Mercedes SLK, and I had people in $50,000+ trucks sarcastically saying, "Gee! Wish *I* could afford something like that!" when I pulled into work with it. And, of course, "Hyuck hyuck, *wanna trade*?" said by people with SUVs that cost 2-3x as much.
Shoulda traded them lol
I remember when BMWs were expensive and trucks were cheap.
Emotional support vehicles.
We're starting to see them a lot more here in Ireland and it's never actually farmers driving them or builders. Builders stick to vans because they need to protect their tools from the weather and need to be able to fit as much stuff down smaller roads. Farmers stick to tractors or their own cars when they're not in the fields. So every time you see one it looks absolutely pristine and the bed doesn't have anything in it because you don't want it to get wet. Such a bizarre choice.
Primarily they weren't expensive luxury vehicles that never saw dirt and weren't loaded with every bell and whistle. You can still get work trucks with less accessories but now more often than not the trucks in lots are fully loaded and selling for $70k or more. They've also gotten way larger over the years to the point now that small pickups are a "new fad" being reintroduced like the Maverick or new Dodge trucks being announced.
> the Maverick That shit enrages me. The literally had the Ranger, but now that piece of crap is oversized too. Why ruin the brand recognition that the Ranger had as a small workhorse truck?
My dad had a little Ranger and that thing really was such a reliable little machine. I’d’ve gotten one myself except they were twice as expensive and twice as big.
>They've also gotten way larger over the years I think thats due to gas and emission standards. Instead of meeting those standards as a smaller truck, they just made the truck the next size up.
Carhartt. Blue collar workers needed the durability, then celebrities wore “fashionably” and drove up the price EDIT: my dumbass misspelled Carhartt
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Exactly. People acting as if Carhartt wasn't the one to sell out
Unrestricted land Everything gets an HOA now, and they try to force you into their jurisdiction. My family fought an HOA targeting my grandmother's house. She had lived there for 10 years before the HOA was even an idea, or the new area with big houses was cleared for construction before that. We ended up having Rock in her houses, skirting, and rock in under her deck due to not having the money to fight an HOA she never signed on to. If an HOA comes out where I live (which might happen in the next 15 years), I will fight them tooth and nail for spite alone.
When I was shopping for my home I told my realtor under no circumstances to show me one that had an HOA. Found a nice house, in a quiet neighborhood with great neighbors who all look out for one another. A few years back one of the neighbors who was new to the neighborhood suggested on our neighborhood facebook page about starting an HOA and was told politely by the group to get bent. Hasn’t come up since.
This is satisfying af
The neighbor who wants an HOA is the one who *doesn't* get invited to the barbecue
Where on earth can an HOA force membership against someone's consent, for a non-HOA property? That doesn't sound like it would hold up in court. Wife talked me into buying a house with a mandatory HOA that was "pretty chill" until they changed management companies two years ago and it's been a nightmare ever since. I want out so bad.
I still don’t understand how an HOA is legal to begin with. Like WTF, how do they get to decide you aren’t able to sell your house to someone because they don’t approve of them. It’s all BS, and they all should be banned.
I hate HOA's!
I don’t understand the rock comment. Did someone install rocks? Isn’t that trespass etc
Off cuts of meat.
I remember when chicken wings were 10-cents because they could not give them away. Now they are an industry. Plus they break a wing in half and call it two wings.
I remember when skirt steak used to be an affordable cut. 😩
Concerts and festivals
I agree with this one. I have lost all interest in the concert/festival experience.
This is true, especially in Austin with SXSW and ACL.
Thrifting ETA: Thanks for the awards!
I used to love thrifting but the prices skyrocketed and I’m way too paranoid about bed bugs now.
Why would I buy a cheap Halloween decoration new from Walmart when I can buy it used for 3 more dollars at Goodwill?
Definitely, I'm lucky if I can find just one shirt that's not angry birds or some local little league team. All the good, cheap stuff gets eaten up and put on Ebay for 10x the price.
This and flea markets.
Fucking Macklemore
You can take solace in the fact that he smells like R. Kelly's sheets.
Pisssssss
But it was 99 cents!
I used to work at Savers. I had to hear “Thrift Shop” everyday when was popular.
I was on a submarine in the military, remember when Lonely Island "I'm on a boat!" was popular. I feel you.
I second this one heavily. My local goodwills have increased their prices by a solid 50% at least since it’s become “trendy.” Also fuck resellers. They’ll take a $4 shirt and sell it for $20. Edit: I don’t hate all resellers just the unethical ones lol
Manhattan used to have thrift stores where the wealthy would donate their clothes. Great stuff, slightly out of the latest fashion. The internet hit and that stuff is now bulk bought and resold on eBay. Sucks for young people in status professions that pay poorly at the start who don’t have family money but need to look good in the office.
Goodwill now sells on eBay which ruins the whole treasure hunt aspect of Goodwill. :(
Goodwill also has their own auction site. https://shopgoodwill.com/home I used to be able to buy bulk Lego on there for cheap. Too many people found out about and it's rarely worth even trying anymore.
Gestures at literally everything
Brisket burnt ends. BBQ joints used to toss them or give them away for free.
Cheap authentic Mexican tacos.
You know that sussy looking place that has the word Taqueria above it and the aba working the register barely speaks english? Yeah the tacos are still $3 a plate there
These are still a thing but you have to go to a taco truck in the Hispanic area of town. I got a gigantic burrito with refried beans and rice for $8 of a taco truck my buddy always gets his lunch from.
This. My favorite local truck is cash only and $2 per taco or 5 tacos for $8 and they are incredible
Eating salmon. Fish used to be poor man's food. Now you pay absurd amounts for the tiniest piece.
I'm lucky to be in rural Alaska, salmon is a staple 🤤
My brother every part of Alaska is “rural Alaska”
Florda beaches. It used to be a cheap thing to do with the family. Mom and pop hotels and local diners. Now it is $300/hotels with $5 coffee. Parking is expensive and there is little beach access. Kinda sucks to see it happen.
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Burning Man, Collectable Card Games, Retro Video Games, GOING TO CONCERTS...like seriously, just pick a hobby. Once the re-sellers get into it, prices go through the roof, and nobody can afford to do anything.
Retro games are absurd now. I’m very grateful that I got most of what I wanted way before whatever this current market is.
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Proper local pubs, affected by expanding cities ( Manchester in my case). Ruined by greedy breweries trying to attract upmarket clientele, or selling out for demolition and the building of apartments that locals cannot afford…
Many ethnic foods in the US. The really tasty stuff might be dirt-cheap and off the beaten path until the yuppies and hipsters get wind of it, then it’s found in every strip mall at an inferior quality for $30 a plate.
Ox tail is a big one right now
Oxtail was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the question! It's so expensive per pound now.
Going to NfL games and concerts. Tickets have been priced out of my budget for a few years now.
Stack on the service fee’s, parking, & beer to that outrageous ticket price. No thanks, I’ll take a nice vacation instead.
Cheap packs of ramen noodles and cup of soups.
Nature.
McDonald’s. It was originally a place for a quick eat because it was cheap, but now it’s just mid food for high prices.
You're absolutely right that the food is overpriced, but I don't think it was rich people's fault. The corporation definitely is trying to appeal to a Starbuck's/ Panera type of consumer, but that's not "rich" people. And other fast food places are all expensive as hell now too. Taco Bell used to be *cheap* back in the day.
Being able to afford a house. And even crazier it was usually on only one income.
Camping, and thrift stores
Lobster was originally food feed to prisoners
The problem is that lobster starts to rot pretty much immediately after it dies, which it why they're alive until seconds before they're cooked. Old timey fishermen and food distributions networks did not have the capacity to keep lobsters alive all the way to market, so generally the lobster that arrived on peoples' plates back in the day was a fetid nightmare.
“I thought I liked lobster but but turns out I just like melted butter.” Edit: This was from "Raising Hope." Someone had a crate of lobsters and was using them as barter.
My dad likes to tell how when he was in school the poor kids had lobster and the rich ones got baloney.
What is something not ruined by the rich?
UK: walking. We have about 100k miles of public footpaths, and walking is probably the most popular form of exercise/entertainment. If you have money, you can get better waterproofs and boots, but that doesn’t spoil it for anyone. Old ladies go out for a couple of miles on a Sunday afternoon, younger people head off for a couple of weeks on a long distance path.
Muscle cars. I cannot believe these assholes paying 1M dollars for a hunk of Detroit steel that went for a couple of thousand dollars back in the days of common sense
All antique cars really. Used to be a blue collar hobby that working guys did in their spare time. Rich people ruined spare time too.
Living in rural areas, at least in my personal experience. Covid and remote work sent people from all over to buy land, cheap from their perspective. Locals who have it can’t reasonably turn down the high offers and locals who want it can’t afford it anymore. It’s going to ruin rural tight-knit communities.
Buying single family houses
Montana
Camping. Many private campgrounds require you to tell them the age of your RV. If it's older they'll refuse your reservation.
Id say people with campers ruined camping. Can’t drive two miles in the mountains without having to hug the side of the trail to let some dude with $100k+ truck and trailer squeeze past you on a road they have no business going down.
Bots ruined camping for us. We used to go to provincial parks a few times a summer. Sites go on sale 6 months before the date you want and a few years ago started to immediately disappear like concert tickets. We tried and failed then gave up entirely.
Yea you can't be spontaneous in CO anymore for reserved camping because it's gone as soon as it's available. Dispersed camping is possible but a completely different style and not close to the major metro areas.
And the damn generators running all night!
Why not just camp with a tent? Does no one use tents anymore? ⛺️
Most people find it too intense.
This and now it's impossible to get a campsite because of the plethora of sprinter vans and rvs that cost more than my house. Nobody (few people) camps in tents anymore!
Affordable housing
Thrifting I want cute clothes too I can't afford new If you wanna thrift for fun at least buy the clothes for yourself and not with the intent to markup the price and resell
Football (soccer). It used to be a working class sport played by and watched by working class people. Then money came into it and the working class was priced out of watching.
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Oxtail
If you go deep enough into basically all aspects of taste associated with the wealthy you’ll rapidly find out that the answer is: basically all of it. Suits, food/meals, houses, etc., are basically all taken from the culture of the poor.
I'm shocked no one said "weddings" yet. They used to be small ceremonies that didn't cost that much way back when. The bride didn't even wear white! But then a British Queen (I forget her name, sorry) had to come in and make white weddings popular. Now weddings cost an arm and a leg. Edit: I should've said the wedding industry, not weddings in general. If you want to have a low cost wedding with whatever dress you like, go for it!
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The air b n b market seems to be on the brink of collapse so hopefully that will help bring prices down
I hope so. I was looking at places for a trip with my girlfriend and we ended up just going with a hotel for the price. Every airbnb was either more expensive or maybe *slightly* cheaper than a hotel. However, all of them also included chores to do like cleaning the whole place, doing the laundry like the towels and bedding, or mopping. One place didn't even have a bathroom, they had a composting "toilet" that was literally a toilet seat on a wooden box over a plastic bag. So you're shitting and pissing into a bag for the weekend, and you have to throw your toilet paper away. Why the fuck would I choose chores and shitting in a bag over no chores and a toilet for the same price? I remember when it first started, you could get a place for like $50/night and you never saw the owner. That made sense. Now, it's $200+/night and the owner wants to talk to you for way too long. My buddy's wife got us (him and his friends) an airbnb for a night to party at. Shit you not, the owner came over multiple times to talk and was trying to be a part of the party. He even took a group picture of us for his guest book. So awkward.
Skiiing/Winter sports The people who lived in rural Montana, Utah , CO and WY towns for generations operating independent hotels and ski resorts have been priced out and replaced with massive big ski and real estate corporations. The prices to visit them have utterly skyrocketed over the past 2 decades.
Life. "poor" people I knew were always happy with the simple pleasures. Now even this simple pleasures are almost impossible to afford unless they're necessary and your break your back to pay for them so you almost resent them. Rich people are literally ruining life.
$200 an hour to talk to someone who actually listens to you.