Asklemmy

Giving money to politicians.

In-game shops

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Private insurance

DLCs: Games are expected to have DLCs nowadays, so game devs purposefully hold back some ideas for potential DLCs, often crippling the main game as a result.

Subscription services: For pretty much anything, but especially those automated monthly payments, which you won't bother cancelling, even if you feel like you're not using the service to its fullest.

Capitalism

Rent

"Disposable" electronics

Video games having microtransactions and "chests" or otherwise with random rewards.

Chiropractic.

I'd wager fewer than 25% of Americans know that it's quackery invented in the 1890s.

Retirement savings connected to the stockk market. Gives a perverse incentive for everyone to continue the wealth transfer upwards, since the stock market is largely based on the vibes of a handful of very rich people.

Herbalife, fucking herbalife.

This weekend, I went into what looked like an indie smoothie shop and dropped an ungodly amount of money on a delicious sounding shake... only to watch the lady drop a scoops of powder and ONE freeze-dried strawberry into a cup with ice. Tasted like ass.

Yet they do have regulars to that shit, and nobody is taking them out of business. I want my fucking $11 back. So anyone reading this doing a class action against Herbalife, I want in...

But I doubt it, since it's a scam that's so normalized we don't realize it's a scam anymore.

Land speculation

The gop

I'll try to list things that aren't in the typical internet echo chamber. Bring on the controversy. These are just my opinions.

50% of the shelf space at the grocery store is just different forms of corn syrup, sometimes with some trans fat mixed in, generationally twisting our idea of what food is in a race to the cheapest, most addictive product.

The only way it's profitable for someone to knock on your door to sell ANYTHING is if they are obscenely inflating the price (think 100-600% markup)

Most supplements, especially expensive ones with TV ads

Dr Scholl's and the goodfeet store

Genuine leather is just about the opposite of what you'd think

Bamboo fabric which is pretty much just a different way to say rayon but is pitched as a revolutionary and environmentally friendly cloth

Most bladeless fans just hide fan blades in the base

Many cleaning products don't do better than diluted soap and water (even for sanitizing) especially the ones with TV ads

Financial planners who are actually financial product salespeople

Most single-purpose kitchen gadgets, especially as-seen-on-TV

The realtors racket: I just paid $30k for an internet posting and mediocre advice

Many personal hygiene products are just repackaging the same two or three active ingredients by the same one or two megacorporations

Essential oils (even ignoring mystical claims) big names charge an order of magnitude higher than they should

Full time work.

In 2021 I would have said Crypto. Now everyone but the most dense people see it for the scam it is.

Car dealerships.

The internet.

And no I don't mean every single part of it. But somewhere along the line there became an expectation that the internet be free. That continued for sites that rapidly grew well beyond the point where it was reasonable for them to be maintained for free, but instead of a natural progression where we pay for things we use, we simply became the product of the internet at large in the form of data about every aspect of our lives.

We now live and exist in a world where very little of what we do is private in any way, our preferences and relationships and tendencies are digitized and correlated and used against us largely without our active, conscious knowledge. And it's all so Gmail, Facebook, and YouTube can be free. Or rather..."free".

It has always felt like the biggest scam ever to me, that everything I do and think online should be bought and sold without me really ever having much of a chance to have a say in that.

Block chain - there's still no legitimate practical use for it

Health insurance. Actually that probably doesn't really count since most of us know it's a scam.

Social media

Religion.

The United States of America

Asking this question every single week.

Most security on consumer hardware

Let's take android for example. There are legitimate security implementations like SELinux, full disk encryption but something like samsung's knox is useless outside of enterprise use and kills OS level modifications

Would be far easier to name things that are not a scam and assume the rest is just a scam in waiting.

Libraries, Pets, Sunrises/sets, Nigerian princes needing loans, Mr. Rogers

Everything else is probably looking to take money from you in some fashion.

Everything comes with a subscription

College. The learning is fine, the cost is freaking out of hand. I never went and have no regrets. My daughter is going now and I feel like I'm supporting a scam.

The extra .9 cent we pay for every gallon of gas in the USA.

Health insurance.

Individualism

Penny auction apps like dealdash, they always have bots that will outbid you so you can never actually win one of their auctions. If you do win an auction, you're not actually guaranteed to ever the see the product you won.

Paying for airplane luggage

Companies being the sole arbiters of OTA "Upgrades" and DRM "purchases".