There are certain stereotypes that attach to the lifestyles of those whom Atlantic staff writer Derek Thompson calls “youngish, urbanish, professionalish.” The twenty/thirtysomethings one thinks of most frequently in such contexts — those who live in cities such as Washington, D.C., and New York and who work in finance, consulting, or (ahem) media — are often thought to live bespoke existences, spending much of their leisure time being ferried via rideshare services between various social outings (especially brunch), ordering food for immediate consumption to be delivered to their abodes (if in D.C., often recently built, hotel-esque constructions with rooftop pools in trendy areas), and generally relying on apps for other assorted needs (getting groceries, arranging out-of-city travel, buying furniture, etc.).
Now, some of this is exaggerated. Not everyone lives this way. I’ve structured my life in D.C. basically to do none of these things, but you don’t have to be a Butlerian Jihad weirdo to avoid ordering Uber Eats to your apartment for every meal. And some of the ways this exaggeration is true stem from the fact that living in this manner can make more sense in the environment of a modern American city. But it is not inaccurate to say the caricature I sketched above is fairly prevalent in such environments. One reason why, as Thompson explains in a recent piece for the Atlantic, is what he calls the “Millennial Consumer Subsidy.” As he describes it:
For the past decade, people like me—youngish, urbanish, professionalish—got a sweetheart deal from Uber, the Uber-for-X clones, and that whole mosaic of urban amenities in travel, delivery, food, and retail that vaguely pretended to be tech companies. Almost each time you or I ordered a pizza or hailed a taxi, the company behind that app lost money. In effect, these start-ups, backed by venture capital, were paying us, the consumers, to buy their products.
It was as if Silicon Valley had made a secret pact to subsidize the lifestyles of urban Millennials. As I pointed out three years ago, if you woke up on a Casper mattress, worked out with a Peloton, Ubered to a WeWork, ordered on DoorDash for lunch, took a Lyft home, and ordered dinner through Postmates only to realize your partner had already started on a Blue Apron meal, your household had, in one day, interacted with eight unprofitable companies that collectively lost about $15 billion in one year.
Alas for its beneficiaries, however, this subsidy is being drawn down. Tightness in the labor market, challenges elsewhere in the economy from supply chains and inflation, and other exogenous factors have ended the previous willingness of investors to bankroll these enterprises indefinitely in the hope that one of them would really take off. As Thompson puts it, until recently “the best way for a start-up to make money from venture capitalists was to lose money acquiring a gazillion customers.”
But no more. The city-dwelling youth whose lifestyles have depended on the cheap availability of services and products through these companies must now contend with “higher prices, higher margins, fewer discounts, and longer wait times.” And I say good riddance — and not just as someone who had long tailored his life mostly to avoid excessive reliance on such things. Whatever their utility in certain situations — a utility that will not expire entirely, even for a stick-in-the-mud like me — inexpensive access to such products by such means enabled a lifestyle for many that prioritized instant gratification, superficiality, and dependence over planning, sustained engagement, and self-reliance. Not to mention the dubious economics behind the whole affair, now being exposed.
If those who once built their lives around these things must now retreat from them somewhat, and others never get the chance to build a life around them in the first place, then I consider that a good thing. The Millennial Consumer Subsidy deserves to be slashed.