Most forms of insurance in the US
Religion
Service as a subscription, for me. It used to be you bought a product and then you owned it. Now if you want practically anything from streaming media to freaking car washes, you have to “subscribe”.
Shampoo
Massage school. They say they’re teaching you a trade and will help with job placement but there is a glut of graduates and not enough jobs for them. Yet the school keeps signing up new students because that’s how they make money.
I’ll try to list things that aren’t in the typical internet echo chamber. Bring on the controversy. These are just my opinions.
50% of the shelf space at the grocery store is just different forms of corn syrup, sometimes with some trans fat mixed in, generationally twisting our idea of what food is in a race to the cheapest, most addictive product.
The only way it’s profitable for someone to knock on your door to sell ANYTHING is if they are obscenely inflating the price (think 100-600% markup)
Most supplements, especially expensive ones with TV ads
Dr Scholl’s and the goodfeet store
Genuine leather is just about the opposite of what you’d think
Bamboo fabric which is pretty much just a different way to say rayon but is pitched as a revolutionary and environmentally friendly cloth
Most bladeless fans just hide fan blades in the base
Many cleaning products don’t do better than diluted soap and water (even for sanitizing) especially the ones with TV ads
Financial planners who are actually financial product salespeople
Most single-purpose kitchen gadgets, especially as-seen-on-TV
The realtors racket: I just paid $30k for an internet posting and mediocre advice
Many personal hygiene products are just repackaging the same two or three active ingredients by the same one or two megacorporations
Essential oils (even ignoring mystical claims) big names charge an order of magnitude higher than they should
Your list makes me realize just how far we peddle bullshit in our society. Virtually everything is lying to you, if only by omission or by being misleading. If you don’t know about cars, finance, food, technology, laws, housing, virtually anything, you will be taken advantage off, if only a little. Pretty much your whole list is spot-on, and it could go on for pages. Toothpaste? They’re lying about the quantity. You think your orange juice is healthy because it is very, very heavily suggested? Nope, it is old oranges with a lot of sugar. Anyway, I am not gonna type the entire comment I want to because it would become very rant-y.
Chiropractors.
Capitalism and religion, easily the top two scams.
First Past the Post voting at elections.
Approval Voting and multi-winner districts let’s gooooooo!
What country? In my country everyone knows that’s a scam.
UK
We had a referendum and people voted to keep the scam.
A great alternative is majority judgment!
Welcome to Canada.
I’m still salty about that broken Liberal promise to reform our elections. None of the parties care about it and it seems no one wants to try to change it.
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.
Democracy. /s
ads
Insurance. A promise they try really hard to break.
Religion. The all-time champion, no contest, just as George Carlin said:
What do you expect to happen when faith in the divine is literally a socially acceptable mental illness.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/2tp0UNcjzl8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Is it just me or do Piped videos not play for everyone? The play button does nothing.
Then start somewhere. Require new construction to be built for humans first. Then bit by bit change.
The Netherlands did this back in 1960 and look at it now. They too had to start somewhere and they did
It requires investment in your infrastructure which well, in the US that’s a joke.
