People Are Calling Out Industries That Shouldn't Exist Anymore, And Whew
The other day, redditor u/filetemyoung asked the internet, "What industry do you hope won't exist in 10 years?" People shared the industries they're sick and tired of, and it's pretty interesting. Here are the surprising results:
1."Everything as a subscription. As a tech worker, I understand why this is so popular, but god, do I hate it."
"Some subscriptions can genuinely offer amazing value to consumers. My problem is the mass adoption of subscription on products and services that have no business being a subscription — those that exist solely so that companies can make more money off you. Not everything should be a subscription"
2."Scam call centers. I legit quit answering my phone and will miss important calls, just because I’m not sure if it’s a spam, scam, or legit."
3."Third party student loan 'consultants.' I used to work as a federal student loan collector for a Department of Education contractor. I have horror stories about borrowers who were purposefully deceived by these people — the worst of whom was someone who thought a consolidation she paid for completely eliminated her obligation."
"What these legally gray a-holes do is trick people into paying to have free paperwork done on their behalf. Sure, they have the tiny fine print disclosures, but they're extremely predatory and make me sick. In my opinion, getting rid of them could be legislation worthy, given that they interfere with federally owned debts."
4."MLMs/pyramid schemes."
"The amount of Facebook posts I see that are like 'join my book exchange! Send six books, get 36 back!' (variations include wine bottles, kids' toys, etc.) tells me pyramid schemes are, unfortunately, not going anywhere. People are not smart enough to realize these are LITERALLY the definition of a pyramid scheme."
"COVID resulted in such an alarming rise of MLMs and other 'entrepreneur'/'be your own boss'/'girl boss' on social media that it honestly is mind boggling. Ironically, and unsurprisingly, every person I know that got into one of these during COVID has gone onto a different, more stable job, but did so only after going into debt pretty heavily."
5."Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Look them up. They’re basically bloodsucking middlemen who sit between hospitals and health insurers. They were supposedly created to control prescription drug costs and manage formularies, but they actually drive prices up. One of the many terrible causes of high medical costs in the states."
6."Child modeling and anything to do with children being publicized on social media."
"I get children modeling children’s clothes for shops and stuff, but when they make 10-year-olds look 20 and 'sexy,' it's just creepy."
7."Telemarketers."
"The problem I have is that all of the telemarketing calls I get, either from bots or from real people, are calling me using phone numbers spoofed from my contacts list. I can't refuse to answer a call from my daughter, but I'm really pissed when it's not my daughter calling, but some scammer using my daughter's phone number."
8."Mommy/family vloggers. They're sinister. A podcast I listened to did a seven-episode deep dive, and it was horrifying. There needs to be laws to protect these exploited children, and in 10-20 years, we're going to see a LOT of these kids telling their horror stories and suing their parents."
9."Fast fashion. It's terrible for the environment (fashion accounts for 20-35% of the microplastic that end up in the ocean), terrible for the workers (93% aren't paid a living wage, child labor, and bonded labor are not uncommon, and many of the factories are unsafe)."
"I could keep going. And people often don't even wear the clothes. They buy them and then bin them. Or, wear them once and they donate them; around 90% of those clothes end up in a textile waste mill. It's recycled, sure, but a better solution would have it never having existed in the first place. And if you send the clothing abroad your good intentions are crippling local markets, and the clothes aren't 'donated' by Oxfam et al, they are sold to local textile traders who sell our old rubbish to a community who have no alternative, the textile mills all closed when our clothes showed up en masse.
One day, I hope to stop buying any new clothes. I'm going find a tailor and have a to have a small wardrobe of clothes that I really like and fit me perfectly made. And then I will enjoy them, and I will wear them until I die. I know a lot of people aren't in a position to do that — fast fashion is associated with profligate purchasing of cheap clothes, but fast fashion also exists because people who don't have a lot of money need clothes to go to work and deserve to feel stylish and attractive, too. I don't have an answer for that aspect of this issue or how to support the garment workers, who are being paid so little. These are things we're going to have to address at some point anyway, because the current model is not sustainable."
10."For-profit prisons."
"The problem is purposely targeting and incarcerating people JUST SO they can put them in a for-profit prison. If they didn’t exist at all, a lot of those criminals would never have been labeled as such in the first place."
11."Child beauty pageants."
"I enjoyed doing one as a child. It was just dress up pretty and walk on stage. BUT there wasn’t any heavy makeup or swimsuit contests or any super photoshopped photos."
12."The people who make college textbooks cost $2,000!"
13."Car dealerships. Give me my direct to consumer sales. Death to the sleazy middlemen!"
14."Health insurance. I need medicine. Doctor says I need medicine. An insurance person with no medical training isn’t so sure. Maybe they approve it short-term. It works. But insurance wants to be sure. So, it’s only approved six months. Then, I have to fight every six months. I have to pay $7,000 every January. Insurance will pay the least possible to make my life semi-livable."
"Insurance is extremely profitable. And people die because some guy needs a third home and a private jet."
15."Payday loans. It should be illegal to entrap someone in a cycle of debt that they cannot get out of. If you already can't afford to wait for a paycheck, then having to make payments against it is inherently going to be a cyclical arrangement in which a loan is paid off and then immediately retaken to cover expenses. Sure, there could be one-off instances, but that seems like it would be a rarity."
16."The natural diamond industry. We can literally grow them in labs sustainably and to the same quality, but there will probably always be people who want natural diamonds sourced unethically."
17."Gambling. It's a massive issue in Ireland and the UK; there's betting shops everywhere. I'm sure its the same in other countries and destroying lives. Can't go anywhere or watch any sport without having it shoved down your throat."
18."Factory animal farming. I love and respect animals. If you wouldn't allow it to happen to your pet, don't pay big business to do it to your food."
"I was raised on a small family farm. I agree, factory farming has to go. Family farms treat their animals well and 'give them a good life.' They were bed and bedded every morning before we were allowed to eat. They all had a name. We knew less stressed animals made a better product."
19."Single-use plastic bottled water. Water in convenient packaging is not itself a bad thing. The problem is more in how we've come to use them in an unsustainable way."
20."Coal mining and associated industries."
"We can transition — it would be good for the economy, our health, and our future, but there isn't the political willpower to do it at the moment."
Scotland, UK.
And finally...
21."The concert ticket mafia. (Think: Ticketmaster, StubHub, LiveNation, etc). Those entities aren't really an entire industry, but they basically have the market monopolized."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
