Main reason I ask is because Chillindude, a prominent member of the competitive Melee community had a stroke recently and as he’s relatively healthy and works out often, he doesn’t have health insurance, and even though he’s sponsored by Team Liquid, one of the largest e-sports teams out there, because he is classified as an independent contractor, he doesn’t have health insurance through them.
The way he got the stroke was through an infection in his knee that he got misdiagnosed twice, and the hospital was going to throw him out even because he’s been stabilized, but doesn’t have coverage, which to me is actual BS but I’m honestly curious as to why this would be the case, considering strokes need so much recovery done for them.
Situations like this is part of why I couldn’t write my own thing for the ideal society post I made the other day, because I have no clue how healthcare should be handled. I do know however that portions of why healthcare is so expensive is due to the companies that make the equipment being anti-“Right to Repair” and the actual repair costs of the equipment being outrageous (Louis Rossmann made that a video months ago and I can’t find it), but still, this whole situation is really outrageous to me, that the hospital was going to throw him out after he stabilized due to a lack of proper coverage, and that stroke recovery as a whole is as expensive as it is in the US. I’d love to hear from our European people if it’s really any better there or am I being lied to, but still, idk what the solution really is.
Edit: I’m in the US, so this is pretty important for me to know.
He’s been playing Melee since he was like 15, and he’s been involved in competitive Smash for half of his life at this point, so I get why he didn’t get insurance, which I don’t blame him, especially since he lives in the DC area and everything’s more expensive around DC.
I kinda hate the reason why e-sports teams do that, which is so they can drop their MOBA players when they need to, but that trickled down to the rest of the industry, which sucks.
There is no point in your life where you are safe enough to not have insurance. If you cannot guarantee your safety physically (pro tip, you cannot) then you must do so monetarily. We can all hate the system, but at the end of the day that's the way it is.
Esports will never be a real industry as long as it amounts to nothing more than "local tourney setup" but with big names attaching themselves to milk advertising. Constantly settling for being treated like a slave is why its never improved past that.
I'm genuinely curious as to what you think a solution would be. I think unionization akin to what most traditional sports have would be viable, but I have no clue how to even go through with things like that. I've been in and around top FGC players for quite a while now (the majority of colleges have FGC/Smash clubs that host tourneys), but the FGC side of the industry and the MOBA/Shooter side of the industry are two different industries for the most part, mainly because what you can advertise to fighting game players is different to what you can advertise to primarily PC players.
There is no solution. Too many people settled for being treated like cattle, and now no company will pay you right because there are 110000000 desperate names willing to take your spot if you try to get better. The foundation was set on a bad foot and will remain as such until the market collapses.
Its the same problem as illegal immigration. Literally nothing can stop the dehumanization and lowered wages of those jobs because there are zero standards the fresh blood care about besides getting in there.
Short of becoming someone who has Name Draw Power, thereby not as disposable, and then pushing your weight just right, most are SOL. Even if you unionized, the entire union could just be excised and replaced with a handful of college campuses worth of new talent.