Here, I’m talking FinTech specifically, but this applies to most other industries, too…
There’s a (very large, publicly-owned) transaction platform and online payment provider shutting down in Australia, next month. It started in 2006, and was useful because it allowed you to avoid card surcharges and bank fees. It was particularly useful for large, instant payments like for flights.
Why is it shutting down? Not because of a security breach, or any issues within the product itself, but because the Big 4 banks here want to kill off their competition, and have forcibly removed the ability for their customers to use the service. They then followed this up with relentless paid propaganda around “security” and how the system is “outdated, so use our in-house product instead”.
I encountered something similar from my bank, recently, while looking at overseas travel cards…
Yet millennials and zoomers lap up the propaganda, just like they do against cash, and think that anyone who still uses these products is a “tech illiterate boomer”. They actively called for the banning of the service I mention, because their banks told them “It bad. Trust us instead.”
Yet these same stupid fucks will happily sign all their private info and banking over to social media companies and shitty crypto exchanges, because “tech”, and shiny new thing, so must be good…
The Kool Aid sure is strong, with my generation and younger, smh… 😑
Can’t wait until we all get de-banked for not being woke enough, and then have no alternatives because we allowed them to develop monopolies on our finances, lol…
The more I look around the more I think a lot of it is a product of upbringing. Not only are they trained to consume endlessly, but they have always been able to consume endlessly. Perhaps it's financial means, perhaps the systems are just designed to give the "feeling" of consumption to those who don't have it--if that makes any sense at all (speculation).
So when it's popular to run to another product, they consume, because they have always consumed. There's no thought of what might be coming. I've had this discussion with my teenage cousin a bunch before where I've had to tell him pretty much straight up that honestly my brain is just wired to be selective and smart about where I spend money and not just boom! I want this now and if the next best thing comes out tomorrow, I'll just get that too. I'd think to be patient and wait for the best opportunity. It's a huge difference in my mindset and I'm not sure it's limited to teenagers because mindless consumption seems to be society now.
I'm pretty sure I often sound like a grouchy old boomer with things like this, maybe I am one. I'm also a product of my upbringing and a lot of things were going on with my family when I was in those coming-of-age years that even my younger brother was too young to pay attention to and it made me a bit different.
I saw this start happening with the iPhone around 2007. I was not interested in it at all. People see following trends as an easy way to get popularity and dopamine. They don't actually think about what those trends are or where they ultimately lead.
I cared at first although I've never had an iPhone. I did get a BlackBerry in 2008 and I've had a couple higher end phones. Then I got tired of it and realized that my $200 special Android phone looks the same in a case as the $1000 one and I've never missed out on any functionality I actually wanted. Everyone with those worries about insurance, payment plans, contracts, whatever. I give a couple hundred bucks to a website every couple years and don't have to worry about it.