Millennials Benefit from Venture Capital, Feel Guilty (Long Subsidies)

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Oh man. THIS. Is. Precious. Herein a Wall Street Journal writer feels guilty about the secondary effects of his penchant for cheap home food delivery, two-day shipping, unlimited movies for $9.99/month and 100-day mattress trials. He asks:

These “Where’s the catch?” deals are practically everywhere now, each causing me a similar dilemma:

*I take Uber Pools home at night, knowing even if nobody else gets in the car the ride’s still going to be cheaper. Are we stiffing drivers?

*I let MoviePass buy me tickets for next to nothing when I used to gladly pay full price. Will this contribute further to the decline in nonsuperhero Hollywood films?

*I demand two-day shipping for everything I buy on Amazon. Am I destroying the Earth, one cardboard box at a time?

*I use the Blue Apron free trial, cancel it and switch to HelloFresh , then rinse and repeat with Sun Basket and Plated. Can decent, easy food delivery survive?

We almost mistook this for an Onion article.

Here are some answers.

Yes. Probably. Yes. No. These answers are pretty self-evident.

The very same people that the writer is concerned about affecting is riding Uber in his off time, ordering the free Blue Apron trial, and taking advantage of 2-day shipping. So, nothing to worry about there.

As for it being a “deal”? We’re giving away our data every single time we eat a subsidized meal, take a subsidized ride, or recycle an extra cardboard box. Isn’t that information valuable? Isn’t there a whole world of people hacking away trying to obtain it? If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Not sure that’s such a great deal, in the end.

So, with that said, we’re now going to do this:

That’s right: $20/month.

Ah, co-working.