The whole idea of a designated time of the year to mass purchase items is just one of capitalism’s greatest tricks. But to answer your question, the ultra rich aren’t human and don’t receive gifts like you and me. Their gifts are the loopholes, human suffering and collapse their greed creates. Merry Christmas.
It’s because money and resources are only valuable in a literal, clinical way. It’s a math problem that beats us over the head until we start thinking that’s how you measure value. That crap is how we sustain our bodies but not our “spirit.” True value comes from humans transmuting basic matter into feelings, sentiments, memories. All the money in the world couldn’t help Gates buy a good gift for himself. He needs people close to him to transmute objects into meaningful gifts.
I think the richer you are, the more aware you are that “money can’t buy happiness.” When we plebs hear this we can’t help but think about the literal value of things, but if you’re rich it takes on a different connotation. Though I can only assume and extrapolate what it must be like.
No insights, but all the money and resources in the world couldn’t replicate a homemade customized gift of some kind. Probably end up with a lot of knitted scarves and hats lol.
Honestly I’m very glad to see this thread. Saw the original comment this morning and was thoroughly bemused, it’s probably been weighing on my subconscious all day.
Chick-fil-A. Direct support to anti-LGBT+ groups. Then after they said they would stop, they were found to still be doing it. But don’t worry, they said they’d stop for real this time.
Payless Shoes. Awful experience checking out once. No reason to ever go back. They’re closed now, so nothing to worry about there.
Doesn’t take extreme wealth for that. I make enough that I can buy whatever I want. The best Christmas gifts are things I wouldn’t think of needing or wanting.
For birthday, it’s usually just a dinner without gifts.
I think that some people, regardless of wealth/income don’t really want “items” to unwrap. That makes sense.
I was imagining that, for Bill Gates (etc.), they could literally just hop on a private jet and fly anywhere in the world to eat at any restaurant they want prepared by a world-class chef. So even certain experiences would be hard to match at home.
Is it usually a home-cooked dinner or a restaurant for you?
At even faintly busy times, they have lines waiting to self checkout, because half the self checkouts are closed. And of course, they have only one regular register open with 8 people with full carts in that line.
It’s nuts to me that every Walmart has like 30 checkout lanes and AT MOST there are 4 open and then they have two sides with self checkouts where only 1 side is open.
If it’s anything like superstore in Canada, they need too much babysitting. Even if there is a store specific person able to fix problems to prevent them from happening again, corporate will force push an update that reverts it. Lots of product entries for things not available on that side of the country will return after being removed and all they do is lock up the system because they don’t actually exist. Every little thing requires the human cashier to reset or override something. I ran 8 at a time on my own when they were new but most people couldn’t do that while ensuring nobody notices the problems and get angry. 4 is reasonable for a non-beginner. Any more requires ridiculous micromanaging.
HP. This one is easy. Low hanging fruit. For me, I bought an expensive gaming laptop that arrived defective. I asked for a replacement, they denied and required I send it in for repairs. Waited a month for them to tell me there isn’t a problem. Asked for a refund instead of having it shipped back. They said that’s not how it works, they have to send it back first. So I get it, with the defect still, and call to get a refund. They initially deny a refund due to being outside the refund period and offer a “buy back” credit. I had to spend an hour explaining why that’s not happening and why they’re going to give me a refund or expect to see me in court. Keep in mind, I hadn’t used this laptop more than an hour or two and it’s been shipped around and forth for two months. I did get my refund at least, but the headache was insane and I refuse to even look at HP products.
Adobe: Already said by others. For me, it’s because they charge an insane amount of money for barely-functional software. I used Affinity products instead.
Google: They cancel their services so quickly, it’s more like they’ve blacklisted ME. I refuse to pay for anything they offer in the event it will be discontinued in a year or two. RIP Play Music.
Amazon: Prices increase, service quality decreases, value decreases exponentially. The product I paid for at $79/year was far more superior to whatever Prime costs today. Mostly third party cheap trash. Unfortunately, and most likely by design, there are just a few specific reasons I’m forced to give Amazon money every so often. But at the very least, I’m making the highest conscious effort to avoid them.
I’ll update this if I come up with more.
Edit 1: Netflix: They keep removing quality content and increasing prices. Anti-consumer shit. They are both the reason I stopped pirating and considered starting again.
I wish we could throw the Adobe executives into the sun. They have the worst anti-consumer business model ever for the most bloated, unusable software.
To this day, Adobe CS5 is probably the best all-encompassing software package they’ve ever released. CS6 added a few things, but was buggy AF. Then CC came out and it’s been in eternal-beta since. So many lost files and sometimes even OS-destroying updates.
Google Play Music still stands as the best commercial music app I’ve used, I miss it, and whatever marketing person got them to change the glorious branding of Play Music, Play Movies, and Play Store for YouTube music, Google TV and Play Store should be fired with extreme prejudice.
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