14 ms·

The Post-Ownership Society

40 points by nkurz 11y ago

beat 11y ago
In a highly competitive market, profits for production are driven to zero. The only thing that remains profitable is rent, for ownership of otherwise unshareable resources like land. We are seeing a shift toward a more idealized, libertarian market. The problem is, in such a market, the only people getting richer are the owner class.
imgabe 11y ago
> Achieving those things was always in the future, at some relatively well-moneyed point that I was expecting would roll around— until I realized the future had dawned and the financial stability hadn’t appeared Well gosh, maybe you have to actually do something to make financial stability happen instead of just expecting that it will magically materialize one day when you hit a certain age.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  There is an element of truth in what you say, and yet it is not completely true. It used to be that, if you wanted to make it as a writer, you got a job at a factory or a restaurant or something to pay the bills while you tried to make it as a writer. (It was called a "day job".) You wrote before or after work, or on the subway to or from work - all the time you could find, in fact. You didn't have much of a social life, because all your spare time went into writing. And, reading the article, the author shows a lot of evidence of "not doing something". She expects to be able to make a living as a writer right out of the gate. (In fairness, she did have an actual magazine job at one time.) She's buying wine at bars and $8 coffees, and then she doesn't have enough money for renting an apartment. It's like she's paying no attention at all to what she's doing financially, and then she's surprised that she doesn't hit that well-moneyed point when she expects financial stability to appear. So that's the element of truth in what you say. The not-completely-true part is this: An awful lot of good-paying, long-term-stable jobs have disappeared, and they aren't coming back. This makes it considerably harder for large chunks of the population to make it to that relatively-well-moneyed point of stability.
  - tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
    I think part of the thesis of the article is that the concept of a "day job" is also unachievable, meaning a full time job that pays you enough to live on, that is stable and has some benefits. If all the jobs that you have available are part-time and no benefits, where you have to have a minimum of two to make ends meet, that does not leave you much time to do anything else but hustle for your next gig; not to mention the vulnerability inherent in their no-benefits nature, no healthcare, likely very little sick time or time off etc. Not having a social life for people in the "gig economy" also seems like a very bad decision, because if your network is not large it will be very difficult for you to find your next part-time gig when one of your current ones ends. As much as a $8 something is a lot of money, if that $8 enables you to meet somebody that knows somebody that can get you a gig it might be a necessary investment unfortunately. The margin for error nowadays is extremely thin: some years back let's say you made a bad decision and went for an "unmarketable" degree, if you finished it you were still very likely to get a better-than-minimum-wage job, and it would be extremely unlikely that you'd be in any significant debt. This job would also likely have been full-time, and paid enough for you to have a modest lifestyle without having to depend on handouts, couch surfing, subletting etc. etc. Until not that long ago a lot of people were able to put themselves through college by working summer jobs, that does not seem as realistic nowadays with the costs involved. Also nowadays once you get out of college what next? entry-level jobs that lead to a full time career are few and far between, factory jobs are a shadow of what they once were, there are a plethora of "gig jobs" but they don't really allow one to consider things like settling down and having kids due to their temporary nature. As much as the author of the article might have made some mistakes (who doesn't) it still doesn't disprove their thesis of the "gig economy" not fostering a stable and predictable life path, or at least not as stable and as predictable as it used to be one or two generations back.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    You're both ignoring an important contextual clue. We’d have $8 drip coffee in the mornings with a rosemary or lavender scone, or something else ridiculously fancy, rubbing shoulders with the people our age and older who actually made money. Pick up any guide on how to get ahead in business or sales, and it will include advice to project an air of success and engage heavily in networking activities. Now I'm personally pretty frugal, but that in itself can be a limitation. You're not likely to meet your next hot netowrking prospect standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts, even less so making coffee in your kitchen and hunching over your computer at the library. I'm not saying the way to success is to go out and spend yourself down on fancy coffee. but look at how so many startups operate; they set up very very nice work environments and then burn through their runway cash hoping they can innovate enough to attract another funding round while also attracting talent by creating a great team with a great place to work. This writer is just trying to leverage the same approach that is promoted all over the place. I don't think she's doing a very good job of it, but if you want to meet people who can advance your career then you need to put yourself out there and putting yourself out there costs money.
lkrubner 11y ago
Any time you read words like this: "We’re a generation in which children were empowered by promises that they could grow up to be anything they wanted to be." You should remember that, since 1973, wages have been declining for the majority of men in the USA: http://www.smashcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Screen-Shot-2014-03-31-at-12.13.58-PM.png http://www.smashcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Scree... Women have seen some modest improvement in wages, but for the most part, the era since 1973 has been a very bad one for American workers. For young men, the problems started as early as the recession of 1958. That was the year that the ratio of average wage to average rent hit its all time best, making it easy for a young couple to set themselves up with their own place. For that reason, this was also the peak of the Baby Boom.
- JonFish85 11y ago
  How does your point follow from the quote you supplied? Nobody ever claimed that anyone would be RICH by being "anything they wanted to be". There are probably more career options today that are within reach for people, but that doesn't mean a person can shut off their brain and blindly jump at an idea for fun. Following dreams is great, as long as you keep an eye out for consequences. If you want to work as a museum curator, by all means go for it, as long as you don't expect to be able to buy the same car, same house, and take the same vacations as someone who goes into a higher paying vocation. The problems arise when people realize too late that "hey, I took out $100k in loans to go to college for a job that pays $35k". Unfortunately, in that situation it's going to mean a lifetime of living in smaller apartments, having crappier cars, fewer vacations, etc than someone who chose differently. And that's not necessarily a bad thing! If following a dream means more to this person than these things, that's great! But let's not pretend that "grow up to be anything you want to be" necessarily means "...and you can afford to pay for everything you dream also".
  - lkrubner 11y ago
    "anything they wanted to be" might include options such as "be a parent" and, without question, falling wages is a difficulty if you want to be a parent.
cyphunk 11y ago
Not owning assets is the entire idea of the sharing economy. Provided one doesn't get upset about someone else having more than themselves the conclusion of the article could sound just fine: "But in fact we’re enriching the owners of whatever app or platform we’re using, becoming just a data point on the path to their payday while we age without assets. It’s their world, and we’re just renting it." The argument against sharing economy isn't that we don't own any more. This was what many wanted from the start. It's that some models destroy other important economic frabrics (such as phantom scarcity created through empty airbnb flats). The argument about reducing workers rights and provisions is also valid. But one effect of decentralized digital labour is that unionisation becomes a more effective form of protection. So on this point, it will get interesting.
netfire 11y ago
There didn't seem to be a lot of strong arguments for the points made in this article. Most of the situation the author finds herself in seems to be due to a poor economy in general (lower pay, rising housing, education and health care costs) and bad financial decisions (not saving up money, buying expensive food, etc), then having anything to do with the sharing economy and not owning something. The author seems to be under the impression that prior to the sharing economy, there weren't middle men still taking a cut for providing vehicles, leasing (or subletting) apartments or providing other services/assets that were needed to do a business. The question would be whether Uber, Zipcar, Etsy, etc are taking any more of a cut than a a more traditional taxi medallion, a car dealership, an art gallery, etc. I suspect they are taking less, since they are transferring a lot of the risk of owning the property and running a business to their contractors. I don't think owning things in general creates wealth. Making smart financial decisions does. If you own a car and are paying a good amount of money to park, insure, maintain and purchase/lease that vehicle and don't drive it enough to justify that expense., it may make a lot more financial sense to use Zipcar, Uber and other public transportation. Similarly it may make sense to invest in owning enough kitchen supplies to prepare your own food instead of eating out all the time (or it may not, it just depends on your situation)
- fleitz 11y ago
  Yup, I had kids at 22, it forced me to really reevaluate whether $10 on coffee a day was a wise use of funds. I ended up buying an apartment at 22 on tech support salary. It sounds like the author has made a lot of poor choices and doesn't want to hold herself responsible for them.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    And for anyone thinking that "it's easy to say 'save more and spend less' when you make a six-figure salary, but that doesn't apply to me", take a look at http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/06/05/success-even-after-self-destruction/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/06/05/success-even-after... , which provides a good counterexample.
- sjiang 11y ago
cko 11y ago
> How the “sharing economy” allows Millennials to cope with downward mobility, and also makes them poorer. In the author's case, the cause of being poor is high expenses (student loan debt, mainly) and low income. I dislike the burden of ownership. Sharing can decrease expenses - for example, living with a roommate. Change driving habits and suddenly you're not as dependent on a car. (I do both these things BTW - the 90% of after tax income I don't spend I invest.) It seems like the author's perception of poor is "not owning her own primary residence." Perhaps that is a common perspective. But redefine wealth to mean "controlling cash flowing assets" and I can see how the sharing economy, combined with creativity and planning, actually helps in wealth-building.
- breischl 11y ago
  >>redefine wealth to mean "controlling cash flowing assets" That's what any sane definition would be. A lot of people seem to use the bizarro-world definition of wealth as "owning cash-gobbling, depreciating assets", such as cars, clothes or (in many cases) houses. Basically they've mistaken the trappings of wealth with the causes of wealth, and then become confused as to why they're not wealthy.
beatpanda 11y ago
So at what point do we as software engineers start paying attention to the outcomes of what we build for society? A lot of people working in software are building things that, in the aggregate, disempower people and transfer even more power into the hands of the owners of capital. I know someone who, fully aware of the consequences, is helping build something to replace many food service industry workers with robots. It's a direct transfer of wealth from workers to the owners of capital. I won't work with him, on anything, because of this. Why are we building this world? What are we thinking?
- derptron 11y ago
  It's the natural progression. Going against automation is like rock fighting against erosion.
  - beatpanda 11y ago
    For the sake of argument let's say I agree. But why aren't we automating away management and coordination tasks to empower workers? Or, why are we building systems that capture the value of the work we're automating away and funneling it up to the owners of capital, instead of distributing the value of those productivity gains to the people doing the work?
    - zo1 11y ago
      I'd say you have a bit of an idealistic/warped view of the world, and the inhabitants within it. Not everyone has the luxury of being so generous, or non-ambitious enough to not be competitive. You're arguing against a natural set of rules, and the effects that emerge from them. If someone invents something that eliminates a task/work/something, then they won't pass on all those costs to the general public. Not unless it suits them to undercut competitors. And that's just one example. On the other hand, you also have business owners that regularly pass on savings to their customers, even when not necessary. If they can manage to do that, good for them. But let's not impose our unrealistic ideals on free-thinking individuals "just because it's good".
alpsgolden 11y ago
In reality, though, these are the same types of services that have always been around—private drivers and taxis, hotels, rental car companies—but their services are sliced up into tiny bits and provided by underpaid contingent workers, which is what we are ourselves. The "sharing economy" has always just been a PR term. I like Airbnb and Uber as services, but it's not a reinvention of human economic interaction. How does a "sharing economy" differ from a rental economy? How does a "sharing economy" differ from any market where people produce services for each other based on reciprocated exchange?
g8oz 11y ago
" a lot of us are “entrepreneurial” as we swing from one grapevine to the next as freelancers, but very few of us are building equity in a real business. " Indeed many of the people participating in the gig economy are essentially in the same position as a day laborer. Across time and space this class of people has always been the most vulnerable to socio-economic tumult. The image of rural landless laborers in India and Ethiopia comes to mind. They were always the first to die in a famine.
benihana 11y ago
"We’re a generation in which children were empowered by promises that they could grow up to be anything they wanted to be." I'm part of this generation and I think this sentiment is the the thing I dislike most about my cohort. Nobody ever promised us anything like that. The story was you have the opportunity to be what you want to be, provided you work for it. For some reason, the kids I grew up with took that to mean they deserved whatever they wanted and that there would be no sacrifices involved. It's cliche, but entitled is the most appropriate word for millenials. It's a moot point though; we were also empowered to question authority and think for ourselves. Anyone who did that realized that we can't all be rock stars.
acconrad 11y ago
> I don’t see the path that would get me from where I am to where they are. Of course you don't. You just told us about how you have $8 coffee. Our grandparents ate canned vegetables and raised two kids in a 1500 sq ft home and you're complaining that you can't keep up with the Jones' while you sip on $8 coffee on a freelancer writer's budget. This isn't a generational problem, this is a complete lack of understanding of personal finance. Look, I, as a Millennial, am aware that the average wage has decreased since the 70s. I'm also aware that being a software developer and making software puts other people out of work because we are automating the things that used to be done by hand. I'm further aware that I've had a stable enough upbringing from a middle-class family to teach me a few things on frugality, saving, and making the most of your education. Things definitely seem to be harder than they were, but whatever thesis the author was trying to defend completely went out the window when I read the quoted statement.

40 points by nkurz 11y ago

beat 11y ago

In a highly competitive market, profits for production are driven to zero. The only thing that remains profitable is rent, for ownership of otherwise unshareable resources like land. We are seeing a shift toward a more idealized, libertarian market. The problem is, in such a market, the only people getting richer are the owner class.

imgabe 11y ago

> Achieving those things was always in the future, at some relatively well-moneyed point that I was expecting would roll around— until I realized the future had dawned and the financial stability hadn’t appeared Well gosh, maybe you have to actually do something to make financial stability happen instead of just expecting that it will magically materialize one day when you hit a certain age.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
There is an element of truth in what you say, and yet it is not completely true. It used to be that, if you wanted to make it as a writer, you got a job at a factory or a restaurant or something to pay the bills while you tried to make it as a writer. (It was called a "day job".) You wrote before or after work, or on the subway to or from work - all the time you could find, in fact. You didn't have much of a social life, because all your spare time went into writing. And, reading the article, the author shows a lot of evidence of "not doing something". She expects to be able to make a living as a writer right out of the gate. (In fairness, she did have an actual magazine job at one time.) She's buying wine at bars and $8 coffees, and then she doesn't have enough money for renting an apartment. It's like she's paying no attention at all to what she's doing financially, and then she's surprised that she doesn't hit that well-moneyed point when she expects financial stability to appear. So that's the element of truth in what you say. The not-completely-true part is this: An awful lot of good-paying, long-term-stable jobs have disappeared, and they aren't coming back. This makes it considerably harder for large chunks of the population to make it to that relatively-well-moneyed point of stability.
- tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
  I think part of the thesis of the article is that the concept of a "day job" is also unachievable, meaning a full time job that pays you enough to live on, that is stable and has some benefits. If all the jobs that you have available are part-time and no benefits, where you have to have a minimum of two to make ends meet, that does not leave you much time to do anything else but hustle for your next gig; not to mention the vulnerability inherent in their no-benefits nature, no healthcare, likely very little sick time or time off etc. Not having a social life for people in the "gig economy" also seems like a very bad decision, because if your network is not large it will be very difficult for you to find your next part-time gig when one of your current ones ends. As much as a $8 something is a lot of money, if that $8 enables you to meet somebody that knows somebody that can get you a gig it might be a necessary investment unfortunately. The margin for error nowadays is extremely thin: some years back let's say you made a bad decision and went for an "unmarketable" degree, if you finished it you were still very likely to get a better-than-minimum-wage job, and it would be extremely unlikely that you'd be in any significant debt. This job would also likely have been full-time, and paid enough for you to have a modest lifestyle without having to depend on handouts, couch surfing, subletting etc. etc. Until not that long ago a lot of people were able to put themselves through college by working summer jobs, that does not seem as realistic nowadays with the costs involved. Also nowadays once you get out of college what next? entry-level jobs that lead to a full time career are few and far between, factory jobs are a shadow of what they once were, there are a plethora of "gig jobs" but they don't really allow one to consider things like settling down and having kids due to their temporary nature. As much as the author of the article might have made some mistakes (who doesn't) it still doesn't disprove their thesis of the "gig economy" not fostering a stable and predictable life path, or at least not as stable and as predictable as it used to be one or two generations back.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  You're both ignoring an important contextual clue. We’d have $8 drip coffee in the mornings with a rosemary or lavender scone, or something else ridiculously fancy, rubbing shoulders with the people our age and older who actually made money. Pick up any guide on how to get ahead in business or sales, and it will include advice to project an air of success and engage heavily in networking activities. Now I'm personally pretty frugal, but that in itself can be a limitation. You're not likely to meet your next hot netowrking prospect standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts, even less so making coffee in your kitchen and hunching over your computer at the library. I'm not saying the way to success is to go out and spend yourself down on fancy coffee. but look at how so many startups operate; they set up very very nice work environments and then burn through their runway cash hoping they can innovate enough to attract another funding round while also attracting talent by creating a great team with a great place to work. This writer is just trying to leverage the same approach that is promoted all over the place. I don't think she's doing a very good job of it, but if you want to meet people who can advance your career then you need to put yourself out there and putting yourself out there costs money.

lkrubner 11y ago

Any time you read words like this: "We’re a generation in which children were empowered by promises that they could grow up to be anything they wanted to be." You should remember that, since 1973, wages have been declining for the majority of men in the USA: http://www.smashcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Screen-Shot-2014-03-31-at-12.13.58-PM.png http://www.smashcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Scree... Women have seen some modest improvement in wages, but for the most part, the era since 1973 has been a very bad one for American workers. For young men, the problems started as early as the recession of 1958. That was the year that the ratio of average wage to average rent hit its all time best, making it easy for a young couple to set themselves up with their own place. For that reason, this was also the peak of the Baby Boom.

JonFish85 11y ago
How does your point follow from the quote you supplied? Nobody ever claimed that anyone would be RICH by being "anything they wanted to be". There are probably more career options today that are within reach for people, but that doesn't mean a person can shut off their brain and blindly jump at an idea for fun. Following dreams is great, as long as you keep an eye out for consequences. If you want to work as a museum curator, by all means go for it, as long as you don't expect to be able to buy the same car, same house, and take the same vacations as someone who goes into a higher paying vocation. The problems arise when people realize too late that "hey, I took out $100k in loans to go to college for a job that pays $35k". Unfortunately, in that situation it's going to mean a lifetime of living in smaller apartments, having crappier cars, fewer vacations, etc than someone who chose differently. And that's not necessarily a bad thing! If following a dream means more to this person than these things, that's great! But let's not pretend that "grow up to be anything you want to be" necessarily means "...and you can afford to pay for everything you dream also".
- lkrubner 11y ago
  "anything they wanted to be" might include options such as "be a parent" and, without question, falling wages is a difficulty if you want to be a parent.

cyphunk 11y ago

Not owning assets is the entire idea of the sharing economy. Provided one doesn't get upset about someone else having more than themselves the conclusion of the article could sound just fine: "But in fact we’re enriching the owners of whatever app or platform we’re using, becoming just a data point on the path to their payday while we age without assets. It’s their world, and we’re just renting it." The argument against sharing economy isn't that we don't own any more. This was what many wanted from the start. It's that some models destroy other important economic frabrics (such as phantom scarcity created through empty airbnb flats). The argument about reducing workers rights and provisions is also valid. But one effect of decentralized digital labour is that unionisation becomes a more effective form of protection. So on this point, it will get interesting.

netfire 11y ago

There didn't seem to be a lot of strong arguments for the points made in this article. Most of the situation the author finds herself in seems to be due to a poor economy in general (lower pay, rising housing, education and health care costs) and bad financial decisions (not saving up money, buying expensive food, etc), then having anything to do with the sharing economy and not owning something. The author seems to be under the impression that prior to the sharing economy, there weren't middle men still taking a cut for providing vehicles, leasing (or subletting) apartments or providing other services/assets that were needed to do a business. The question would be whether Uber, Zipcar, Etsy, etc are taking any more of a cut than a a more traditional taxi medallion, a car dealership, an art gallery, etc. I suspect they are taking less, since they are transferring a lot of the risk of owning the property and running a business to their contractors. I don't think owning things in general creates wealth. Making smart financial decisions does. If you own a car and are paying a good amount of money to park, insure, maintain and purchase/lease that vehicle and don't drive it enough to justify that expense., it may make a lot more financial sense to use Zipcar, Uber and other public transportation. Similarly it may make sense to invest in owning enough kitchen supplies to prepare your own food instead of eating out all the time (or it may not, it just depends on your situation)

fleitz 11y ago
Yup, I had kids at 22, it forced me to really reevaluate whether $10 on coffee a day was a wise use of funds. I ended up buying an apartment at 22 on tech support salary. It sounds like the author has made a lot of poor choices and doesn't want to hold herself responsible for them.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  And for anyone thinking that "it's easy to say 'save more and spend less' when you make a six-figure salary, but that doesn't apply to me", take a look at http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/06/05/success-even-after-self-destruction/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/06/05/success-even-after... , which provides a good counterexample.
sjiang 11y ago

cko 11y ago

> How the “sharing economy” allows Millennials to cope with downward mobility, and also makes them poorer. In the author's case, the cause of being poor is high expenses (student loan debt, mainly) and low income. I dislike the burden of ownership. Sharing can decrease expenses - for example, living with a roommate. Change driving habits and suddenly you're not as dependent on a car. (I do both these things BTW - the 90% of after tax income I don't spend I invest.) It seems like the author's perception of poor is "not owning her own primary residence." Perhaps that is a common perspective. But redefine wealth to mean "controlling cash flowing assets" and I can see how the sharing economy, combined with creativity and planning, actually helps in wealth-building.

breischl 11y ago
>>redefine wealth to mean "controlling cash flowing assets" That's what any sane definition would be. A lot of people seem to use the bizarro-world definition of wealth as "owning cash-gobbling, depreciating assets", such as cars, clothes or (in many cases) houses. Basically they've mistaken the trappings of wealth with the causes of wealth, and then become confused as to why they're not wealthy.

beatpanda 11y ago

So at what point do we as software engineers start paying attention to the outcomes of what we build for society? A lot of people working in software are building things that, in the aggregate, disempower people and transfer even more power into the hands of the owners of capital. I know someone who, fully aware of the consequences, is helping build something to replace many food service industry workers with robots. It's a direct transfer of wealth from workers to the owners of capital. I won't work with him, on anything, because of this. Why are we building this world? What are we thinking?

derptron 11y ago
It's the natural progression. Going against automation is like rock fighting against erosion.
- beatpanda 11y ago
  For the sake of argument let's say I agree. But why aren't we automating away management and coordination tasks to empower workers? Or, why are we building systems that capture the value of the work we're automating away and funneling it up to the owners of capital, instead of distributing the value of those productivity gains to the people doing the work?
  - zo1 11y ago
    I'd say you have a bit of an idealistic/warped view of the world, and the inhabitants within it. Not everyone has the luxury of being so generous, or non-ambitious enough to not be competitive. You're arguing against a natural set of rules, and the effects that emerge from them. If someone invents something that eliminates a task/work/something, then they won't pass on all those costs to the general public. Not unless it suits them to undercut competitors. And that's just one example. On the other hand, you also have business owners that regularly pass on savings to their customers, even when not necessary. If they can manage to do that, good for them. But let's not impose our unrealistic ideals on free-thinking individuals "just because it's good".

alpsgolden 11y ago

In reality, though, these are the same types of services that have always been around—private drivers and taxis, hotels, rental car companies—but their services are sliced up into tiny bits and provided by underpaid contingent workers, which is what we are ourselves. The "sharing economy" has always just been a PR term. I like Airbnb and Uber as services, but it's not a reinvention of human economic interaction. How does a "sharing economy" differ from a rental economy? How does a "sharing economy" differ from any market where people produce services for each other based on reciprocated exchange?

g8oz 11y ago

" a lot of us are “entrepreneurial” as we swing from one grapevine to the next as freelancers, but very few of us are building equity in a real business. " Indeed many of the people participating in the gig economy are essentially in the same position as a day laborer. Across time and space this class of people has always been the most vulnerable to socio-economic tumult. The image of rural landless laborers in India and Ethiopia comes to mind. They were always the first to die in a famine.

benihana 11y ago

"We’re a generation in which children were empowered by promises that they could grow up to be anything they wanted to be." I'm part of this generation and I think this sentiment is the the thing I dislike most about my cohort. Nobody ever promised us anything like that. The story was you have the opportunity to be what you want to be, provided you work for it. For some reason, the kids I grew up with took that to mean they deserved whatever they wanted and that there would be no sacrifices involved. It's cliche, but entitled is the most appropriate word for millenials. It's a moot point though; we were also empowered to question authority and think for ourselves. Anyone who did that realized that we can't all be rock stars.

acconrad 11y ago

> I don’t see the path that would get me from where I am to where they are. Of course you don't. You just told us about how you have $8 coffee. Our grandparents ate canned vegetables and raised two kids in a 1500 sq ft home and you're complaining that you can't keep up with the Jones' while you sip on $8 coffee on a freelancer writer's budget. This isn't a generational problem, this is a complete lack of understanding of personal finance. Look, I, as a Millennial, am aware that the average wage has decreased since the 70s. I'm also aware that being a software developer and making software puts other people out of work because we are automating the things that used to be done by hand. I'm further aware that I've had a stable enough upbringing from a middle-class family to teach me a few things on frugality, saving, and making the most of your education. Things definitely seem to be harder than they were, but whatever thesis the author was trying to defend completely went out the window when I read the quoted statement.