Scams That We Just Accept
America is a racket and it's corruption only gets more noticeable with each day. I kinda wanted to talk about some stuff that is so blatantly a scam, but it's so integrated into our society we have kinda no choice.
Insurance: Imagine if you will, paying $50-$200 per month for the off chance that something will happen and when something does happen, the thing you've been paying money to protect you for denies protecting you. That's basically American insurance. It doesn't matter if you're talking car or health. It all sucks. They basically collect money to do fuck all with it when it comes time to actually needing it. Health insurance is basically a control tool by employers to make sure you're too piss scared to quit or demand better treatment.
College: I don't say this like some get rich guru that tries to belittle continuing education. Those guys would find Gen Ed difficult. I'm talking the entire tuition system. Thousands of dollars you have to spend every semester, and for the first 2 years it's the same bullshit classes you took in high school. God help you if you have to retake a class or change your major. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if degrees meant shit anymore, but good lord even then the price is nauseating. And don't even get me started on the cost of college textbooks. You'll spend $100 on a fucking PDF file that you'll use maybe a handful of times.
Cars: Car ownership is fucking RIGGED. Car dealerships want you stuck in this infinite loan loop so bad that they'll actually prefer someone who takes a loan vs. someone who pays in cash these days. Not to mention, if you have anything older than like a 2008, your repair cost is going up because mechanics can't fucking fix these damn things. Either because they were designed by a some asshat who looked at a bowl of pasta and thought it was perfect engineering, or that they don't have the diagnostic system to actually fix any computer problems in your car. Gas fluctuates more than a menopausal woman having hot flashes. All this so that you could have the freedom to get stuck in 7am rush hour traffic. It wouldn't be so terrible if we had sensible public transit in this gods-forsaken country, but because our politicians are cheaper than a can of Pepsi, they're all bought and paid for by automotive lobbyists. Henry Ford can burn in hell. If you're going to get a car, get an older model Honda or Camry and learn to do basic maintenance. Oil changes from mechanic, $80. Oil change from myself and it takes maybe 10 minutes, $30.
Warranties: You'll often always get asked to buy some dipshit protection plan whenever you buy some electronic or anything worth more than a few hundred dollars. They're pointless. They're usually only for up to a year, and that's usually before things actually start going wrong with your device. If you pay attention, warranties tend to expire before typical hardware failure. Yeah if you constantly shake like a constipated Chihuahua and drop your phone constantly, maybe get one. But for most people, it's cheaper and more practical to just buy a hard case... or just take care of your crap.
Free Shipping: It's not free shipping. Shipping is never free unless what you're buying from has their own shipping service like Amazon (but even then there's backend costs). The shipping is always factored into the cost of the item if it's not explicitly stated. If you're buying an item that's $15 + free shipping, there's a good chance that Item is like $12.50 + $2.50 shipping. It's all marketing.
Online subscriptions: It's not fucking 1998 anymore, why the hell are gaming companies still charging for you to play online? That was a rhetorical question, we all know why, doesn't make it any less stupid. Look, the Netflix of games costing money is fine, but Jesus why am I needing to pay money for something literally every modern device does for fucking free? It's why PC ownership is much cheaper in the long run, yeah there's a greater up-front cost, but the cost of subscriptions to online services, the lowered functionality, the lack of mod support, so on and so forth just make consoles look gimped in comparison. I kinda miss when consoles costed like $300, it actually made sense to own a console over a PC back then. I bought my first computer back in 2013, guess what? All the games I bought back then I can play on my entirely new rig and they look better than ever! I could go on a whole rant of why PC gaming is the best, but I'll save that for my gaming blog. Back to me bitching about other stuff.
Online Skins: BaCk WhEn I wAs A bOy... If you told a gamer in the 2000s people were paying $10 for essentially horse armor, they'd look at you like that fish from Spongebob after Spongebob put only one ice cube in his drink. Seriously, I was looking at discord, $5 for a fucking border over your profile picture... that shit should be $0.99 TOPS.
Phone plans: The whole system encourages infinite debt loops similar to that of car manufacturers. They want you paying year after year. Paid off your phone? Guess what you can upgrade! Oh but we're gonna charge you $60 to press a button and swap out your SIM card. Fucking What? Don't you cunts get enough money from my cell plan? People will buy mid-upper tier cell plans and only ever really use the unlimited calling/texting from the bottom tier.
Maybe you've got some other things you've notice to just be a complete racket. This is kinda the things I notice that impact me the most.
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as of writing this...
My folks are coming into town for mother's day. It's gonna be nice spending time with them. I woke up late today since it's Friday and nobody is in office early. So I can walk in late and leave early and nobody is there to tell me I can't. In-office policies can suck a fart out of my ass.