10 ms·

The Cheapest Generation

94 points by _s 13y ago

anigbrowl 13y ago
Speaking as a member of Generation X, having a computer and getting on the Internet early made ownership of a car far less interesting. I did have a motorcycle for a while and occasionally I find myself thinking about a car, but it's an awful lot of money for something I don't really enjoy using.
- xemoka 13y ago
  You said it. It just isn't enjoyable to own a car anymore. With all the added crap on-top there is no reason for my simplicity craving brain (even if it isn't true, we simplify to a point of making the process of simplifying complex) to desire the perceived complexities and costs of owning a new car. That being said, I do own one. It's not new (10 years old now), it's 'cheap' to run (4-cylinder), and is purely for utility (4x4 for snow) as I live in a rural community. Even then, I take the bus between communities to commute to work.
fintler 13y ago
Gen Y here. I think they answered their question halfway through. Total student debt in the US is currently about $1,134,752,535,374.00 and increasing at a rate of about $2,853.88 per second. The article title is linkbait -- any generation that spends that amount of money isn't "cheap" (I think the word "exploited" is probably more appropriate).
- cgore 13y ago
  I make a lot more than a lot of GenY, and have less student loan debt, and it is a MAJOR part of my budget. I don't see how someone with an average salary and average student loan debt could get a loan for a car or for a house.
  - mjn 13y ago
    This is one thing I think a lot of young people here (Denmark) don't really realize about their advantages. Yeah, the taxes are higher, but they have no student loans to pay off. (Not to mention: they can start a business without worrying about healthcare premiums.)
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    How long will it be a major part of your budget? Someone with a typical state university student debt load making a typical SV software engineer salary can be out of debt in 5 years without much discomfort.
    - cgore 13y ago
      Probably around that long. Perhaps less if things go well.
probably_wrong 13y ago
I'm not sure which letter applies to me, but I'm still under 30. Whenever I think about a car, I think about where I'd park it (either on the street and risk nature damage, or fork some extra cash every month for a parking spot), the cost of gas (more cash), the nightmare that is driving in the city center, finding a place to park it (usually, involving even more cash), maintenance (cash) and the cost to the environment. And what would I get for that? Reducing my commute 15 minutes, and being designated driver at the weekends. Small, electric cars would solve some of those problems, but car makers insist we don't want them. I really think they are asking the wrong question - instead of "why aren't 'millenials' buying cars?", they should ask "why would millenials buy a car on the first place?".
- angersock 13y ago
  "why would millenials buy a car on the first place?". That's exactly it. It's not the status symbol it used to be, because it should've never been one in the first place. You can't work on cars much anymore, and it's clear that the car-centric planning we've gone with was a terrible fucking idea and has been setting us up for much sadness.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    You don't understand status symbols. The less practical and more of a pain-in-the-ass something is, the better its potential as a status symbol. Yachts aren't status symbols among the rich because of their immense practicality & utility.
    - fibbery 13y ago
      That might be true for the upper class, but for middle and lower classes the biggest status symbol currently is a shiny new smartphone with much utility.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  I'm not sure which letter applies to me The commonly accepted cutoff is 1981/1982. So, anyone 31 or younger is GenY.
makerops 13y ago
Since when does "not taking loans out for shit you can't afford" equate to cheap?
- angersock 13y ago
  Since it started hurting profit margins. Remember, being efficient pretty much negates the opportunity for someone to make a buck off of you.
- westicle 13y ago
  When "frugal", "thrifty" and "prudent" became dirty words.
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    I like "austere". It sounds much more elegant but is actually much dirtier.
angersock 13y ago
Here are some scattered observations and opinions as somebody in this generation. I'm basically just dumping gut feelings here--don't expect a lot of well-written explanations. There is not a lot worth buying that is long-lasting. Most everything feels mass-produced and cheap, and the things that aren't are pretty obviously marketed at people trying to buck that trend. I don't want to pay 10x more for something without getting that increase in quality, and the fact is that I won't get it. There is no reason to trust the banks. They're a bunch of fucking crooks, and the smaller the bank (or credit union) the less room they have to be crooks. Credit rating is bogeyman. Ever since I was old enough to spend money I was told to worry about my credit rating, and to take out credit cards, and do all that other stuff. These messages occurred at about the same time we saw everyone getting hammered over credit-card debt, and heard the Republicans chest-beating over sound fiscal policy. It's plainly obvious that you aren't expected to actually be fiscally sound--otherwise why would they keep flooding you with credit invitations? Cars are expensive and limited in utility. Insurance rates are high despite companies never actually helping you when you need it, gas is expensive as hell and is clearly being gamed in the commodities market, and commuting is bullshit as white-collar work becomes either redundant or distributed. Our parents set our city planning up for failure. I live in the fourth-largest and sprawliest metropolitan area in North America (Houston). Every decent improvement is blocked by some greedy Boomer sonovabitch whose business or view would be mildly inconvenienced by the impact of construction. We have food deserts, and suburbs actively designed to discourage walking. Our government doesn't care about us. Nobody in my generation believes that Social Security or Mediwhatever will still be around to support us in our old age. Nobody believes that our vote matters, that the politicians sitting in office will kowtow to anybody who won't pay for a fucking dinner or make a fucking donation. Our government not only doesn't care about us, it schemes to make things worse. Because the Boomers and Generation X are still considered important, their views and more importantly fears are turned into policy. This gives us the TSA, crazy FDA regs, patent trolling, and all sorts of barriers to progress. Our companies don't care about us. Congratulations, we're all contract workers now. Pensions? Hah. Healthcare? Cheapest we can justify. Vacation? Go fuck yourself you needy snowflake. No loyalty, nada, and they expect that they can reach you on the phone or email at all times. We don't believe in advertising. We've had so much marketed to us for so long so pervasively that we genuinely do not respond to advertising. It's a developed blind spot, and with the social tools we have available we see no need to be advertised to--we know what we want, and can just search for it. We don't believe in the police. Police are pretty obviously not policing neighborhoods and aren't on the beat--they're chaotic actors who get involved and always always always make things worse. The news is filled with stories of DAs fucking over little guys, of state troopers harassing innocent drivers to raise a buck, of SWAT teams kicking in homes and shooting dogs. We don't believe in the news. It's become easier than ever to find different coverage on the same stories, and to spot patterns in news-speak. Every talking head sounds the same, and the news is always obviously slanted to one side or the other. There is no journalistic integrity anymore, there is nothing in the mainstream news we can trust. We believe in each other. The sheer amount of fakeness delivered through ads and bullshit mass media has made us very interested in "real" things, in hanging out with our friends, in starting families. It's not that we're self-centered--it's that so much of the rest of the world is presented through some exploitative nostalgia that we hold it suspect.
bitops 13y ago
I'm a Millenial and I enjoy owning a car, but I definitely don't care about it as an indicator of social status the way older generations did. I would much rather own a self-driving pod with a comfortable couch where I could work or relax without thinking about driving. Or even enjoying the view! Driving is fun, but for day-to-day stuff, I'd much rather get online as soon as possible to get my work done. I tend to think of time in a car as time wasted, unless I just happen to be in the mood to drive.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Driving is fun, but for day-to-day stuff, I'd much rather get online as soon as possible this statement makes me recoil. If I need anything, it is to be online less, and driving enforces that, if only for a little while.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    I used to have that view, but now I don't own a car, and I take device-free walks instead, which I think I actually prefer. I like looking at architecture, trees changing color, birds, whatever, while taking a 30-min walk somewhere. It feels less hectic than when I'd drive.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Oh, I'm not saying I need driving to disconnect. Just reacting in general to the notion of getting back online asap.
  - bitops 13y ago
    Ah, my point wasn't that I want to be online a lot. My point was that I want to get online and get my work done. That way I can log off sooner and go do other stuff I enjoy doing.
cm2012 13y ago
I had the option of getting my dad's old car for free, recently. It works fine, looks nice and is about 9 years old, but I decided not take it (so he's giving it to his troubled sister). I live in a suburb of NYC (Floral Park) where it might be useful sometimes, but its just not worth it just considering the cost of monthly insurance. I take the bus/subway everywhere and can take many taxis a month before a car makes more sense.
carsongross 13y ago
You have to love the media: "The boomers voted themselves healthcare on their kids backs, made their kids go into crushing debt for education, put basic housing out of reach for them and look to be financing their retirement via them. How come those darn kids aren't buying cars?"
- guerrilla 13y ago
  It reminds me of how kids used to work for the parents on a farm or factory to help support their family. Maybe the burden has just been moved, assuming the quote has any validity.
  - WalterSear 13y ago
    Eventually the kids got a farm out of it.
- cylinder 13y ago
  Boomers didn't enact Medicare or Social Security. Basic housing is still very much in reach; nobody is entitled to live in McMansions in high-value neighborhoods. But "basic housing" is certainly available and FHA loans should cover their purchase.
nilkn 13y ago
At least regarding homes, their prices have skyrocketed beyond inflation in many heavily populated urban areas. This is of course because of the increasing populations in major cities and the limited land available near the city center. It's an extra powerful factor that drives housing prices up on top of inflation. Housing has become a major, major expense in many cities, so much so that getting into a nice neighborhood in a good location often requires two considerable incomes. This is true even in less popular cities like Houston. For instance, this is the neighborhood west of the university I attended: http://search.har.com/engine/doSearch.cfm?ZIP_CODE=77005&CLASS=1&SUBDIVISION=WEST%20UNIV http://search.har.com/engine/doSearch.cfm?ZIP_CODE=77005&CLA.... I remember driving through that neighborhood when I first started college; I had no idea these were million dollar homes of the elite. Regarding cars, I own one, but I don't enjoy driving in traffic, and traffic is far, far worse today than it was in the 70s or 80s. Commutes are worse than they've ever been. I'd love to go for a drive along a winding country road, but I don't much care to fight traffic on a congested highway with construction and accidents impeding any sort of sane traffic flow. I actually just rent an apartment near the office I work in and walk to work. Driving for me is mainly to visit friends and get groceries.
graeme 13y ago
Back of the envelope calculations put the cost of car ownership around $7,000 per year. I'd have to earn an extra $10,000 before tax to cover that. That pays for a lot of "overpriced Apple products" that we millenials are constantly blamed for overspending on. And my electronics are a business expense. I can't see the use case for a car. I live in the Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood of montreal. Everything I need is literally a five minute walk away in any direction. A bike gets me downtown about as fast as a car does in summer, the metro can often cross town faster, and taxis are a minute's call away. You can pay for a lot of taxis with the money saved not buying a car. Meanwhile, if I had had the cost of running a car, I would have gone bankrupt on several occasions while bootstrapping my business. For no tangible benefit. Now that I've got financial stability, I still can't see why I would want one. If I car to drive myself, there are communauto stations all around me (Montreal equivalent of Zipcar). If I moved to the suburbs, things would be different, but I have no intent of moving to the suburbs.
- randallsquared 13y ago
  "Back of the envelope calculations put the cost of car ownership around $7,000 per year." You could buy a ten-year-old used car every year, plus insurance, for $2,000 or less [1] (assuming insurance is mostly the same as in the US). When it breaks down, buy a new one and sell the old one for parts or junk. Owning a car provides courses of action you wouldn't consider without it. There's an extra level of planning involved if you have to try to find a car first, or take a train or airplane; if you have a car, the first step to any medium-length trip is to jump in the car, rather than to try to work out the logistics of how you'd get there. [1] http://montreal.en.craigslist.ca/search/cta?query=&zoomToPosting=&minAsk=500&maxAsk=1500&autoMinYear=&autoMaxYear= http://montreal.en.craigslist.ca/search/cta?query=&zoomToPos...
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    > There's an extra level of planning involved if you have to try to find a car first, or take a train or airplane Note that this not really true of countries with good transportation networks. Granted that the U.S. doesn't have one, but that's exactly one of the things people want to fix....
stdbrouw 13y ago
It's an intriguing idea and there's probably something to it, but what kind of shitty journalism is this? > Needless to say, the Great Recession is responsible for some of the decline. Yep, but somehow that's a boring assumption that doesn't gel with the authors' thinking so they just brush it aside completely. > First, gas prices more than doubled, which made car-sharing alluring. Because the cost of a car-share is somehow independent of gas prices? Really? (Gas prices may make people less likely to drive everywhere, making a car less of a useful purchase, making car-sharing more alluring – I'll grant them that.) Then it continues with three examples of the "sharing economy", because obviously three examples is enough to declare a trend. Sigh...
- warfangle 13y ago
  > Because the cost of a car-share is somehow independent of gas prices? Really? Zip car rentals include gas.
  - harpastum 13y ago
    But the rental price includes the price of gas. If gas prices tripled tomorrow, Zipcar would have to raise their rates. It's a bit more decoupled for the customer, but it has the same impact overall.
    - YokoZar 13y ago
      If gas prices are expected to be continuously high, you will try to structure your life in a way that can minimize car usage (say, living in an urban area). That can make not even owning a car at all a viable option. If you're such a person, and do happen to occasionally need a car for something, that makes you much more likely to be a ZipCar customer. Zipcar doesn't make new customers by having driving be practical, they make new customers by having driving be impractical enough to be (almost entirely) avoided.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
cenhyperion 13y ago
“We just think nobody truly understands them yet.” I don't think that's true. I think that auto manufacturers don't want to accept that millennials don't associate cars with freedom, independence, maturity, and sex in the same way that cars were viewed by previous generations. At most they're a way to get from point A to B for most millennials, at worst (if you're a car maker) they're viewed as dirty machines that the world would be better without.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  It's always weird to hear other GenY say this. At least for me, growing up cars were exactly all of those things.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - _delirium 13y ago
    Maybe it's because they were nearly ubiquitous in the middle-class part of suburban Houston I grew up in, but even though lots of people hard cars, I somehow didn't really associate any status with them. Someone always had a car, and if you didn't, someone would pick you up. Nobody except rich kids owned their own cars, so you weren't driving anything particularly interesting anyway, just your mom's station wagon. As long as one person in your circle of friends had use of a car for the day/evening, they could pick everyone up, and it served the utilitarian purpose of covering the long-ass distances between stuff, which were impractical to bike or walk (and of course there was no public transport).
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Sure, cars weren't status symbols to me or my friends, and I didn't meant to say they were. I said cars were everything my comment's parent listed- notice that comment didn't list "status symbol".
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    If I want the "freedom feeling" of the open road and the wind in my hair, I'll get a moped or motorcycle, and ride it in some backwoods location where joyriding doesn't actually mean getting hit by an irritated commuter.
adamb_ 13y ago
One possible explanation for why Gen Y and younger aren't interested in buying cars is that the smartphone has replaced what the car once was: The primary tool for social interaction & experiencing the world.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  I've always seen it from a highly pragmatic perspective as a mere method of transport.
sbierwagen 13y ago
The obvious dual to "the cheapest generation" is "the poorest generation". College is twice as expensive, and there are half as many jobs.
- collyw 13y ago
  And they are worse paid in comparison to before. And the generation is probably far more educated.
astrowizicist 13y ago
This article is older than the Cheapest Generation.
mlangdon 13y ago
When the author wrote this article yesterday: http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how-to-write-the-worst-possible-column-about-millennials/281129/ http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how-to-wri... Had he forgotten about co-writing this trenderrific, millenials-as-failed-commodity dreck last year?
tokenadult 13y ago
Thread with more than 200 comments discussing this 2012 article from a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421897
jmngomes 13y ago
Our government not only doesn't care about us, it schemes to make things worse. This is the main issue for me, I think about it a lot as it seems to me that we're starting to see the beggining a major change in how people view and respond to government. For me, the main (only?) problem with democracy is that it requires citizens to pay attention and get involved. Voting is the bare minimum. Taxpayers have to be the watchdog over public spending (it's their money), monitor the ethical behaviour of elected officials and, ideally, be involved in their favorite party to keep political careerism low and avoid electing corrupt/for sale candidates. Banks can only get as big as regulators allow them to. So it's people that need to force the regulator into action on their behalf, instead of just complaining about getting screwed over by a bank rescue due to incompetence or criminal behaviou. Whining won't help, only serious participation can save us from an increasingly shitty life imposed by low IQ and/or unethical politicians.
- collyw 13y ago
  Such faith in the democratic process, when all the evidence points to a corrupt dysfunctional system. Occupy Wall Street did a bit more than your minimum of voting. what happened as a result? Nothing. Obama promised big changes including closing of Guantanamo. Has that happened? Voting validates the corrupt system.
  - jmngomes 13y ago
    Sistematic protests are fundamental, but hardly all that's necessary. I saw a guy defending a thesis that makes sense to me: register for a party and become politically active within your own possibilities, e.g. participating in local assemblies, voting for candidates, etc. Change has to come from within. Obviously, you can't do anything by yourself. You'd need taxpayers to rally up for a massive participation in political parties; that's why it's so hard. But anyway, I'd be happy to know some alternatives to this.
thedrbrian 13y ago
I wonder if the slower car sales have anything to do with the quality of the cars? Modern cars are a triumph of engineering and marketing over fun. Over damped throttles, layers upon layers of "safety" computer systems , auto gearboxes to cheat the emissions tests , wide tyres and a lack of feel and fun.

94 points by _s 13y ago

Speaking as a member of Generation X, having a computer and getting on the Internet early made ownership of a car far less interesting. I did have a motorcycle for a while and occasionally I find myself thinking about a car, but it's an awful lot of money for something I don't really enjoy using.

xemoka 13y ago
You said it. It just isn't enjoyable to own a car anymore. With all the added crap on-top there is no reason for my simplicity craving brain (even if it isn't true, we simplify to a point of making the process of simplifying complex) to desire the perceived complexities and costs of owning a new car. That being said, I do own one. It's not new (10 years old now), it's 'cheap' to run (4-cylinder), and is purely for utility (4x4 for snow) as I live in a rural community. Even then, I take the bus between communities to commute to work.

fintler 13y ago

Gen Y here. I think they answered their question halfway through. Total student debt in the US is currently about $1,134,752,535,374.00 and increasing at a rate of about $2,853.88 per second. The article title is linkbait -- any generation that spends that amount of money isn't "cheap" (I think the word "exploited" is probably more appropriate).

cgore 13y ago
I make a lot more than a lot of GenY, and have less student loan debt, and it is a MAJOR part of my budget. I don't see how someone with an average salary and average student loan debt could get a loan for a car or for a house.
- mjn 13y ago
  This is one thing I think a lot of young people here (Denmark) don't really realize about their advantages. Yeah, the taxes are higher, but they have no student loans to pay off. (Not to mention: they can start a business without worrying about healthcare premiums.)
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  How long will it be a major part of your budget? Someone with a typical state university student debt load making a typical SV software engineer salary can be out of debt in 5 years without much discomfort.
  - cgore 13y ago
    Probably around that long. Perhaps less if things go well.

probably_wrong 13y ago

I'm not sure which letter applies to me, but I'm still under 30. Whenever I think about a car, I think about where I'd park it (either on the street and risk nature damage, or fork some extra cash every month for a parking spot), the cost of gas (more cash), the nightmare that is driving in the city center, finding a place to park it (usually, involving even more cash), maintenance (cash) and the cost to the environment. And what would I get for that? Reducing my commute 15 minutes, and being designated driver at the weekends. Small, electric cars would solve some of those problems, but car makers insist we don't want them. I really think they are asking the wrong question - instead of "why aren't 'millenials' buying cars?", they should ask "why would millenials buy a car on the first place?".

angersock 13y ago
"why would millenials buy a car on the first place?". That's exactly it. It's not the status symbol it used to be, because it should've never been one in the first place. You can't work on cars much anymore, and it's clear that the car-centric planning we've gone with was a terrible fucking idea and has been setting us up for much sadness.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  You don't understand status symbols. The less practical and more of a pain-in-the-ass something is, the better its potential as a status symbol. Yachts aren't status symbols among the rich because of their immense practicality & utility.
  - fibbery 13y ago
    That might be true for the upper class, but for middle and lower classes the biggest status symbol currently is a shiny new smartphone with much utility.
sliverstorm 13y ago
I'm not sure which letter applies to me The commonly accepted cutoff is 1981/1982. So, anyone 31 or younger is GenY.

makerops 13y ago

Since when does "not taking loans out for shit you can't afford" equate to cheap?

angersock 13y ago
Since it started hurting profit margins. Remember, being efficient pretty much negates the opportunity for someone to make a buck off of you.
westicle 13y ago
When "frugal", "thrifty" and "prudent" became dirty words.
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  I like "austere". It sounds much more elegant but is actually much dirtier.

angersock 13y ago

Here are some scattered observations and opinions as somebody in this generation. I'm basically just dumping gut feelings here--don't expect a lot of well-written explanations. There is not a lot worth buying that is long-lasting. Most everything feels mass-produced and cheap, and the things that aren't are pretty obviously marketed at people trying to buck that trend. I don't want to pay 10x more for something without getting that increase in quality, and the fact is that I won't get it. There is no reason to trust the banks. They're a bunch of fucking crooks, and the smaller the bank (or credit union) the less room they have to be crooks. Credit rating is bogeyman. Ever since I was old enough to spend money I was told to worry about my credit rating, and to take out credit cards, and do all that other stuff. These messages occurred at about the same time we saw everyone getting hammered over credit-card debt, and heard the Republicans chest-beating over sound fiscal policy. It's plainly obvious that you aren't expected to actually be fiscally sound--otherwise why would they keep flooding you with credit invitations? Cars are expensive and limited in utility. Insurance rates are high despite companies never actually helping you when you need it, gas is expensive as hell and is clearly being gamed in the commodities market, and commuting is bullshit as white-collar work becomes either redundant or distributed. Our parents set our city planning up for failure. I live in the fourth-largest and sprawliest metropolitan area in North America (Houston). Every decent improvement is blocked by some greedy Boomer sonovabitch whose business or view would be mildly inconvenienced by the impact of construction. We have food deserts, and suburbs actively designed to discourage walking. Our government doesn't care about us. Nobody in my generation believes that Social Security or Mediwhatever will still be around to support us in our old age. Nobody believes that our vote matters, that the politicians sitting in office will kowtow to anybody who won't pay for a fucking dinner or make a fucking donation. Our government not only doesn't care about us, it schemes to make things worse. Because the Boomers and Generation X are still considered important, their views and more importantly fears are turned into policy. This gives us the TSA, crazy FDA regs, patent trolling, and all sorts of barriers to progress. Our companies don't care about us. Congratulations, we're all contract workers now. Pensions? Hah. Healthcare? Cheapest we can justify. Vacation? Go fuck yourself you needy snowflake. No loyalty, nada, and they expect that they can reach you on the phone or email at all times. We don't believe in advertising. We've had so much marketed to us for so long so pervasively that we genuinely do not respond to advertising. It's a developed blind spot, and with the social tools we have available we see no need to be advertised to--we know what we want, and can just search for it. We don't believe in the police. Police are pretty obviously not policing neighborhoods and aren't on the beat--they're chaotic actors who get involved and always always always make things worse. The news is filled with stories of DAs fucking over little guys, of state troopers harassing innocent drivers to raise a buck, of SWAT teams kicking in homes and shooting dogs. We don't believe in the news. It's become easier than ever to find different coverage on the same stories, and to spot patterns in news-speak. Every talking head sounds the same, and the news is always obviously slanted to one side or the other. There is no journalistic integrity anymore, there is nothing in the mainstream news we can trust. We believe in each other. The sheer amount of fakeness delivered through ads and bullshit mass media has made us very interested in "real" things, in hanging out with our friends, in starting families. It's not that we're self-centered--it's that so much of the rest of the world is presented through some exploitative nostalgia that we hold it suspect.

bitops 13y ago

I'm a Millenial and I enjoy owning a car, but I definitely don't care about it as an indicator of social status the way older generations did. I would much rather own a self-driving pod with a comfortable couch where I could work or relax without thinking about driving. Or even enjoying the view! Driving is fun, but for day-to-day stuff, I'd much rather get online as soon as possible to get my work done. I tend to think of time in a car as time wasted, unless I just happen to be in the mood to drive.

sliverstorm 13y ago
Driving is fun, but for day-to-day stuff, I'd much rather get online as soon as possible this statement makes me recoil. If I need anything, it is to be online less, and driving enforces that, if only for a little while.
- _delirium 13y ago
  I used to have that view, but now I don't own a car, and I take device-free walks instead, which I think I actually prefer. I like looking at architecture, trees changing color, birds, whatever, while taking a 30-min walk somewhere. It feels less hectic than when I'd drive.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Oh, I'm not saying I need driving to disconnect. Just reacting in general to the notion of getting back online asap.
- bitops 13y ago
  Ah, my point wasn't that I want to be online a lot. My point was that I want to get online and get my work done. That way I can log off sooner and go do other stuff I enjoy doing.

cm2012 13y ago

I had the option of getting my dad's old car for free, recently. It works fine, looks nice and is about 9 years old, but I decided not take it (so he's giving it to his troubled sister). I live in a suburb of NYC (Floral Park) where it might be useful sometimes, but its just not worth it just considering the cost of monthly insurance. I take the bus/subway everywhere and can take many taxis a month before a car makes more sense.

carsongross 13y ago

You have to love the media: "The boomers voted themselves healthcare on their kids backs, made their kids go into crushing debt for education, put basic housing out of reach for them and look to be financing their retirement via them. How come those darn kids aren't buying cars?"

guerrilla 13y ago
It reminds me of how kids used to work for the parents on a farm or factory to help support their family. Maybe the burden has just been moved, assuming the quote has any validity.
- WalterSear 13y ago
  Eventually the kids got a farm out of it.
cylinder 13y ago
Boomers didn't enact Medicare or Social Security. Basic housing is still very much in reach; nobody is entitled to live in McMansions in high-value neighborhoods. But "basic housing" is certainly available and FHA loans should cover their purchase.

nilkn 13y ago

At least regarding homes, their prices have skyrocketed beyond inflation in many heavily populated urban areas. This is of course because of the increasing populations in major cities and the limited land available near the city center. It's an extra powerful factor that drives housing prices up on top of inflation. Housing has become a major, major expense in many cities, so much so that getting into a nice neighborhood in a good location often requires two considerable incomes. This is true even in less popular cities like Houston. For instance, this is the neighborhood west of the university I attended: http://search.har.com/engine/doSearch.cfm?ZIP_CODE=77005&CLASS=1&SUBDIVISION=WEST%20UNIV http://search.har.com/engine/doSearch.cfm?ZIP_CODE=77005&CLA.... I remember driving through that neighborhood when I first started college; I had no idea these were million dollar homes of the elite. Regarding cars, I own one, but I don't enjoy driving in traffic, and traffic is far, far worse today than it was in the 70s or 80s. Commutes are worse than they've ever been. I'd love to go for a drive along a winding country road, but I don't much care to fight traffic on a congested highway with construction and accidents impeding any sort of sane traffic flow. I actually just rent an apartment near the office I work in and walk to work. Driving for me is mainly to visit friends and get groceries.

graeme 13y ago

Back of the envelope calculations put the cost of car ownership around $7,000 per year. I'd have to earn an extra $10,000 before tax to cover that. That pays for a lot of "overpriced Apple products" that we millenials are constantly blamed for overspending on. And my electronics are a business expense. I can't see the use case for a car. I live in the Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood of montreal. Everything I need is literally a five minute walk away in any direction. A bike gets me downtown about as fast as a car does in summer, the metro can often cross town faster, and taxis are a minute's call away. You can pay for a lot of taxis with the money saved not buying a car. Meanwhile, if I had had the cost of running a car, I would have gone bankrupt on several occasions while bootstrapping my business. For no tangible benefit. Now that I've got financial stability, I still can't see why I would want one. If I car to drive myself, there are communauto stations all around me (Montreal equivalent of Zipcar). If I moved to the suburbs, things would be different, but I have no intent of moving to the suburbs.

randallsquared 13y ago
"Back of the envelope calculations put the cost of car ownership around $7,000 per year." You could buy a ten-year-old used car every year, plus insurance, for $2,000 or less [1] (assuming insurance is mostly the same as in the US). When it breaks down, buy a new one and sell the old one for parts or junk. Owning a car provides courses of action you wouldn't consider without it. There's an extra level of planning involved if you have to try to find a car first, or take a train or airplane; if you have a car, the first step to any medium-length trip is to jump in the car, rather than to try to work out the logistics of how you'd get there. [1] http://montreal.en.craigslist.ca/search/cta?query=&zoomToPosting=&minAsk=500&maxAsk=1500&autoMinYear=&autoMaxYear= http://montreal.en.craigslist.ca/search/cta?query=&zoomToPos...
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  > There's an extra level of planning involved if you have to try to find a car first, or take a train or airplane Note that this not really true of countries with good transportation networks. Granted that the U.S. doesn't have one, but that's exactly one of the things people want to fix....

stdbrouw 13y ago

It's an intriguing idea and there's probably something to it, but what kind of shitty journalism is this? > Needless to say, the Great Recession is responsible for some of the decline. Yep, but somehow that's a boring assumption that doesn't gel with the authors' thinking so they just brush it aside completely. > First, gas prices more than doubled, which made car-sharing alluring. Because the cost of a car-share is somehow independent of gas prices? Really? (Gas prices may make people less likely to drive everywhere, making a car less of a useful purchase, making car-sharing more alluring – I'll grant them that.) Then it continues with three examples of the "sharing economy", because obviously three examples is enough to declare a trend. Sigh...

warfangle 13y ago
> Because the cost of a car-share is somehow independent of gas prices? Really? Zip car rentals include gas.
- harpastum 13y ago
  But the rental price includes the price of gas. If gas prices tripled tomorrow, Zipcar would have to raise their rates. It's a bit more decoupled for the customer, but it has the same impact overall.
  - YokoZar 13y ago
    If gas prices are expected to be continuously high, you will try to structure your life in a way that can minimize car usage (say, living in an urban area). That can make not even owning a car at all a viable option. If you're such a person, and do happen to occasionally need a car for something, that makes you much more likely to be a ZipCar customer. Zipcar doesn't make new customers by having driving be practical, they make new customers by having driving be impractical enough to be (almost entirely) avoided.
deleted 13y ago
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cenhyperion 13y ago

“We just think nobody truly understands them yet.” I don't think that's true. I think that auto manufacturers don't want to accept that millennials don't associate cars with freedom, independence, maturity, and sex in the same way that cars were viewed by previous generations. At most they're a way to get from point A to B for most millennials, at worst (if you're a car maker) they're viewed as dirty machines that the world would be better without.

sliverstorm 13y ago
It's always weird to hear other GenY say this. At least for me, growing up cars were exactly all of those things.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- _delirium 13y ago
  Maybe it's because they were nearly ubiquitous in the middle-class part of suburban Houston I grew up in, but even though lots of people hard cars, I somehow didn't really associate any status with them. Someone always had a car, and if you didn't, someone would pick you up. Nobody except rich kids owned their own cars, so you weren't driving anything particularly interesting anyway, just your mom's station wagon. As long as one person in your circle of friends had use of a car for the day/evening, they could pick everyone up, and it served the utilitarian purpose of covering the long-ass distances between stuff, which were impractical to bike or walk (and of course there was no public transport).
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Sure, cars weren't status symbols to me or my friends, and I didn't meant to say they were. I said cars were everything my comment's parent listed- notice that comment didn't list "status symbol".
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  If I want the "freedom feeling" of the open road and the wind in my hair, I'll get a moped or motorcycle, and ride it in some backwoods location where joyriding doesn't actually mean getting hit by an irritated commuter.

adamb_ 13y ago

One possible explanation for why Gen Y and younger aren't interested in buying cars is that the smartphone has replaced what the car once was: The primary tool for social interaction & experiencing the world.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
I've always seen it from a highly pragmatic perspective as a mere method of transport.

sbierwagen 13y ago

The obvious dual to "the cheapest generation" is "the poorest generation". College is twice as expensive, and there are half as many jobs.

collyw 13y ago
And they are worse paid in comparison to before. And the generation is probably far more educated.

astrowizicist 13y ago

This article is older than the Cheapest Generation.

mlangdon 13y ago

When the author wrote this article yesterday: http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how-to-write-the-worst-possible-column-about-millennials/281129/ http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how-to-wri... Had he forgotten about co-writing this trenderrific, millenials-as-failed-commodity dreck last year?

tokenadult 13y ago

Thread with more than 200 comments discussing this 2012 article from a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421897

jmngomes 13y ago

Our government not only doesn't care about us, it schemes to make things worse. This is the main issue for me, I think about it a lot as it seems to me that we're starting to see the beggining a major change in how people view and respond to government. For me, the main (only?) problem with democracy is that it requires citizens to pay attention and get involved. Voting is the bare minimum. Taxpayers have to be the watchdog over public spending (it's their money), monitor the ethical behaviour of elected officials and, ideally, be involved in their favorite party to keep political careerism low and avoid electing corrupt/for sale candidates. Banks can only get as big as regulators allow them to. So it's people that need to force the regulator into action on their behalf, instead of just complaining about getting screwed over by a bank rescue due to incompetence or criminal behaviou. Whining won't help, only serious participation can save us from an increasingly shitty life imposed by low IQ and/or unethical politicians.

collyw 13y ago
Such faith in the democratic process, when all the evidence points to a corrupt dysfunctional system. Occupy Wall Street did a bit more than your minimum of voting. what happened as a result? Nothing. Obama promised big changes including closing of Guantanamo. Has that happened? Voting validates the corrupt system.
- jmngomes 13y ago
  Sistematic protests are fundamental, but hardly all that's necessary. I saw a guy defending a thesis that makes sense to me: register for a party and become politically active within your own possibilities, e.g. participating in local assemblies, voting for candidates, etc. Change has to come from within. Obviously, you can't do anything by yourself. You'd need taxpayers to rally up for a massive participation in political parties; that's why it's so hard. But anyway, I'd be happy to know some alternatives to this.

thedrbrian 13y ago

I wonder if the slower car sales have anything to do with the quality of the cars? Modern cars are a triumph of engineering and marketing over fun. Over damped throttles, layers upon layers of "safety" computer systems , auto gearboxes to cheat the emissions tests , wide tyres and a lack of feel and fun.