Yep. I think a lot about "pinch" the concept I first learned from mobile game design that by making something inconvenient, you can charge people to make that inconvenience go away. And once you learn to spot pinch in all aspects of society, you can't unsee it.
Wanna watch my twitch stream without ads? Sub to my channel! Wanna watch my youtube content uninterrupted? Youtube Premium! Wanna keep playing this game but you don't wanna wait? 2 buck stamina refill! Wanna hear the podcast without weird localized ads on an MP3? Patreon!
Basically we’re now living in the movie “Brazil”
I definitely see this, but I also many examples of people doing the opposite. I guess the anti-pinch is a widening or opening or something. While there’s a corporate race to the bottom—to pinch everything—there are still folks roasting small batches of coffee, sketching one image at a time.
It’s the true evil genius of capitalism: acting like it is the conduit for better living and infinite possibilities when it literally is an obstacle to both.
Also known as rent seeking behavior www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rent...
I think of every app and service that starts off fine, then gets deliberately worse, then puts a price on the old version. Usually that priced version gets worse over time too.
I just call it very naively: ineptitude