Yes you can see this culturally in the old stereotypes about “old money” versus “new money.”

Rich family with a hereditarily passed down fortune, lands, and control = old money = feudalism.

Entrepreneur who came from nothing but tok advantage of emerging economies to become wealthy overnight = new money = capitalism.

Old money hates new money because capitalism dethroned feudalism.

Inheritance. Your move.

“be part of the owner class” they said - not “be a business owner”

It’s completely possible to own a piece of this and a piece of that and just sit and watch the checks come in. You just need to enter the picture with enough liquid cash. You’re not sorry they’re technically incorrect - you just don’t know anyone actually in this class.

If you want to support a Reddit alternative, be prepared to invest some time and create some content. Moderate without big delays. You may put in more than you get back, but guess what? That’s what it takes to build something. Honestly given the tone of this post I would say don’t bother, you are not cut out for it.

Not your fault. It happens all the time.

Apparently #1 is the development of the paywall.

Sure, it can happen. The anecdote sounds ludicrous to me: gatekeeping someone with that much experience over checking a box like that. But the good news is, if you’re in that situation you will know it, and can then act appropriately. If one is not in such an obvious situation, I think what I said is still good baseline general advice.

Did she do it for the joy of learning? Or personal growth and satisfaction? Or was it for career enhancement?

There’s not one specific age you’re going to find is The Answer to this.

When you are young and still developing and have lots of time to find your path, it’s worth making the long term investment of some general schooling to maximize your own growth and development, and prepare yourself for a broad set of possible futures.

However, as your career progresses, it becomes less valuable to invest in general schooling, but specific training for your specific career can still be valuable.

There’s no cutoff point where all this flips. If you are 5 years into your career and still aren’t certain of what you want to do, an MBA may still be valuable. It will expose you to a range of skills and possible roles and give you some good general foundation for things like leadership roles, or starting your own business.

If you are 20 years into your career and want to rank up to earn more money, an MBA is probably more expensive than it is worth. At that point, your experience is much more valuable than shy degree. Sure, you might look better in a job interview with MBA on your resume, but getting an MBA is expensive and whatever small advantage it gives your resume will probably not pay for the cost of the MBA.

You need to figure out where you are in this journey. Do you still feel that you are exploring and looking for your niche? Schooling might help. Are you on a specific path and hoping to power up? Schooling may not help.

I am 20 years in. I took a class for $300 last year that was highly specific to my role and only required two days. That was worth it. Spending $40k on an MBA will not be worth it for me. I could be 38 or 54 years old, age isn’t really the point.

I think at some point you may need to admit that this post is essentially “I don’t like this thing, why does everyone else?” This is subjective and cultural, not logical. You don’t have anything objective against celery, you just think it ”tastes horrid.” You’re entitled to that opinion. But I don’t understand why you seem to struggle so much with the idea that others don’t share it. Personally I think garlic is absolute magic, but I can 100% accept that others may not like it the same way, and some may be violently repelled by it. 🤷‍♂️

I thought of exactly the same thing!

I just go back to the things that forum admins have done forever: block whole IP continents you don’t see meaningful engagement from but see a ton of bots from. Make new accounts jump through a bunch of hoops. Don’t allow new users to create content for a while, and then make them earn that right over time. Shadow ban the crap you can identify so they waste their strength. Reap inactive accounts periodically. And so on.

I acknowledge your point about alternate use, but we also need to look at a datacenter we may or may not need as a “power consumption plant.” These jackasses just keep loading and loading up the grid, looking to make a private dollar on public infrastructure. It’s wasteful and not necessarily a baseline good thing ^TM even if AI goes flop.

Having really shitty bags is probably the best idea of all.

Because Reddit exists.

Reddit itself didn’t truly take off to massive scale until some other players were out of the way. It was the underdog for a long time.

Some of these are under threat too. There are online lawyer and doctor offerings now. Maybe not plumbers, but there are certainly tech companies trying to own the plumbing referral business (like Thumbtack) and they suck a great deal of the profit margin out of it. Nothing is safe.

Some local retail makes sense, and some does not. For example, my life would really suffer if the hardware store down the street closed up. I like being able to get a paint match home in under 30 minutes. And sometimes I spend half an hour looking for the exact bolt I need, checking it against the other part it’s going to screw into: you just can’t do all that on Amazon and the big box motherfuckers are further away and far less convenient.

Once I messed up and superglued a wrench into my palm. I couldn’t wait for fucking Prime Overnight. I went down to the hardware store and asked if they stocked ca glue debonder. They didn’t, but the store manager got out some acetone and sat there with me, slowly pouring it on as I peeled the wrench out. He wouldn’t even take my money at the end. You just cannot get that kind of service from Lowe’s or Amazon. I now buy every single thing I possibly can there, to help ensure they stay around. I drag my kids anytime I need to go there, and they’re allowed to raid the candy rack at the checkout.

My local hardware store stands apart as an indispensable local retail utility and I buy everything I possibly can there, because I like having a local hardware store and occasionally really need one. I buy all the household cleaning products I can there, for example, because they sell them, I need them, and I’m incredibly happy to pay whatever extra 40 cents they cost over having Amazon pack up a box of dish pods into its own cardboard box and truck it out to my house,

Yeah I actually never expected to have an LCD billboard up inside my home.

I would merely hate this and curse the manufacturer. But I know that if it were in my house, my kids, with their raw, unhardened minds, would find it irresistible. The slogans would worm their way into their everyday speech. They would talk about new ads over breakfast. They just don’t have the filters we adults have. So I’m so fucking glad I don’t have anything like this. It’s beyond mildly infuriating to truly insidious.