Price Hikes, Wage Theft and More.
In Tech (Yes, it happens in high-paid tech too...)
I love it when I can combine design with political discourse and that is exactly what a recent Inktober prompt for “HIKE“ led me to do. I’ve been dabbling with typography the past few weeks and I found a new burst of energy and inspiration when I started to do a panel on Inflation and Price Hikes.
A quick rundown on the economic state of things:
High Fees:
In the past year, we have witnessed no-ads-ever touting platforms start to run ads, cut people away from family plans, and introduce further pricing tiers. Yes, you Netflix. While the same co-CEOs take home compensation that is ~248 times that earned by the median Netflix employee. And Netflix is not alone, nearly every tech platform that provides a usable service has hiked its fees and pricing structures.
The Rental Situation:
One of the major reasons I have decided to move out of the US is the impossible housing scenario. I have now lived in eight different apartments in 8 years. In Boston, the average rent is an insane $4,061 for a single bed. And the average price for a new home is $600,000 or more. It’s now laughable to many millennials and Gen-Zs to even think of buying a home or settling down here. The American Dream slips further and further away, and the middle classes are being wantonly left behind.
Wage Theft:
Wage Theft is an insidious and wide-spread practice rooted deep within our capitalist economic systems. In the US, every year workers lose more than 50bn dollars to wage theft. And very little of these lost wages and unpaid overtimes and stolen tips make their way back into the pockets of the deserving.
Tech companies are also notorious wage thiefs. From Amazon to Uber, Walmart and Google, many of the big names are actively engaging in this practice. The use of the H1-B system helps them by pass many of the labor laws and exploit immigrant workers. Furthermore, instead of paying the entire wages for a full time workers, many tech companies procure contractors for lesser pay and zero benefits. Following the great wave of layoffs in the past few years, this practice of replacing full-time employees with mis-managed contractors has only accelerated across the tech sector.
:)
(Love this little video byInflation:
The political race horses are speaking enough on this topic to fill a sinking ship. But they often ignore the lived experiences of the majority. Grocery store prices, heat, electricity, and more continue to be high. Even going to the vet costs us a minimum of 500 dollars per visit which is untenable for many.
The reason I chose to speak and design a typographic display around price hikes is to keep the spotlight on this pressing issue. As humans we tend to habituate, but this is one situation we should not move on from and instead keep fighting for good wages and decent living conditions.
Every little price hike has a story behind it. It’s not as simple as saying “Oh Netflix, raised the pricing again by a dollar. Oops.”
The real question is: Who should pay for that dollar? And why is the CEO taking home so much money?
Note: Thank you so much for reading this post. I haven’t had a lot of time to write on Substack lately as I have been working on designing new products for my store, editing product photos and re-designing the website (again!) Being a product-focused small business owner is hard. But thank you for sticking with me and also, welcome to all the new readers!
Next time, I intend to focus on LinkedIn scams, so stay tuned ;)
And ICYMI, here’s a link to my interview with Yi Xue:
