Misunderstandings

In a true free market, the consumer calls the shots. Vendors chase tastes, preferences, and real needs. Collectively, buyers decide what’s produced and sold. That’s how it ought to work.

But John Kenneth Galbraith laid it out plain back in his 1958 book The Affluent Society: Producers flipped the script with heavy advertising. They don’t just respond to demand—they manufacture it. Radio, TV, movies, and now the internet poured in, shaping what people think they want. Kids grow up soaking in media, picking up identities, deciding what’s “cool.” Public schools and society pile on, training folks to follow along rather than think independently. It’s easier to let others decide for you—path of least resistance.

For decades, this worked like a charm. Advertising and media trained consumers to buy what was pushed. Living standards climbed steadily—cars, gadgets, homes, all of it. People followed the cues from big media, government, and culture.

Then came the turn. Starting in 2024, prosperity for the average person started slipping. By 2026, the common man is hurting—tighter budgets, higher costs, less optimism. Economic reports show consumer spending growth slowing, sentiment dropping, with real challenges from inflation, labor shifts, and policy uncertainties hitting hard.

Businesses, especially big tech, are scrambling. They got used to consumers lining up for the next shiny thing. Now? Folks are saying “no thanks” to the latest gadgets, subscriptions, and AI-driven offers. Vendors double down on the same old push—more ads, more hype—but it’s not landing like before.

Power has shifted. The economy now favors buyers in a real way. Consumers are tired of being sold the same stuff they’ve outgrown.

Big tech views people as virtual profiles—data points, learned behaviors, artificial identities shaped by years of media and algorithms. They’ve been marketing to these constructed versions of us.

But real stress—economic pain, daily struggles—is waking folks up. People are shedding those shelved, media-made selves and becoming genuine again. Authentic needs, frustrations, and limits are surfacing.

AI is great at targeting virtual people, but it’s hitting a wall with real, suffering humans who want substance over simulation. This could be a tough, maybe even unsolvable, headwind for those riding the AI wave right now.

Simple truth: when consumers stop playing along and start demanding what they truly need, the game changes. We’re seeing that now.