this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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[–] riskiedingo@lemmy.world 59 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Similarly with housing. Why make cheap starter homes when you can make so much more with “Luxury” homes and condos.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 5 days ago (2 children)

And yet use the same cheap materials in the "luxury" ones that you would have used in the cheap ones anyway!

[–] almost1337@lemmy.zip 30 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I follow some home inspectors who post videos from their new home inspections, and holy crap the things they find are ridiculous. Like, construction companies should lose their licenses bad.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I visit some partially built homes from time to time, and recently saw one just after it had been inspected. On one wall, on the insulation, the inspector had scrawled STUD? In red felt.

The stud was completely missing from the wall. It was just an empty frame filled with insulation. You’d think someone would have noticed earlier during construction, but obviously the actual contractor had just let the day labor go to town and never bothered to review their work before inspection.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 2 points 4 days ago

A lot of times, it's the contractor cutting corners and hoping no one notices.

[–] quoll@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 5 days ago

lol, that is 100% every australian apartment built in the last 15 years. the window frames are plastic and the cladding is combustible... but it's got Italian tiles and "European appliances" so it's an "executive suite". that will be $1.5million fuck you very much.

[–] worhui@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

It cost nearly the same to make a luxury unit as a stripped down one. Most of the cost is labor. Spend 5 k in fancier materials and get 50k for the unit.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Similar to literally every market that involves 'things', as we transition from failing liberal capitalism to horrifying technofascist neofeudalism (aka cyberpunk dystopia).

The next step is... well they won't lower the luxury prices, everything becomes renting, loaning, etc, even further and harder... untill you end up with bundled subscription plans / leases on a diverse array of physical things, as we currently have with bundles of online services.

We literally going to transition to a subscription based model for just being alive.

... unless enough people actually do something effrctive about it.

Other wise, the K shaped economy becomes a === shaped economy., you're either on top, or you're not, and you're basically treated as a kind of cattle.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We literally going to transition to a subscription based model for just being alive.

Isn't that just health insurance?

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yes, that's true, but I meant more like uh...

The Disney+ life supscription is partnered with Starbucks, which is also partnered with Amazon Whole Foods and Trader Joes, and Verizon, and Subaru and GM.

The Netflix life supscription is partnered with Costco, Cox, and McDonalds, Chevy and Toyota.

The HBO Max life supscription is partnered with Walmart, ATT, Honda and Ford, ... Cluck'in Bell, fucking whatever.

And then also some kind of alliance type structure with various regional or national landlords/land developers.

Like, uh, roughly the idea of a Japanese Keiretsu, or a Korean Chaebol, but kind of inverted, applied much more thoroughly to the consumer side, than to the finance/internal corporate structures.

So yeah, you just pick one of those three life subscription plans, they all have various tiers, etc, and you... well you rent or lease or finance basically everything.

Thats how the idea of a kind of Corporate Citizenship will start, something like that.

That's my nightmare/prognostication.

It won't be based around like, families of business that define your employment paths, as exists in much more uh, 'classic' cyberpunk, I guess.

It'll be oriented around consumption, getting things, because... practically no one will even have 'real' jobs, having a career will become a defining marker of being born into an upper crust corpo elite class of some kind, the rest of us proles will just be shuffled between gig work, retail jobs, jail, prison, military, etc.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I gotcha. Hell, we've been there before. The company towns essentially owned every aspect of the lives of the people that lived there.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Yep.

I guess maybe a less verbose way to say it would be:

Company towns, but...! Everything is computer!

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 2 points 4 days ago

There's a difference between "cheap" and "inexpensive." Mcmansions are cheap.

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world -1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

People wanted those mcmansions and rebuilds jack up prices. Now those massive suburban mcmansions are getting old in the tooth and no one wants to buy them. They are realizing they need to build smaller homes finally. We'll probably see more townhomes with shared structures (walls/roofs).

[–] hark@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Before they were building mcmansions and charging a fortune for them. Now they're building sardine cans and charging a fortune for them. Much better.