A Word of Exposition

[AthenaAwakened]

As I was watching the video in the OP, I was reminded of a conversation I recently had in the supermarket.

I was in The Fresh Market. I don't usually shop there, but they had sweet potatoes on sale and this particular variety candies really well, so I was in line at the check out with my bag of sweet potatoes and I notice the woman in front of me also had a bag and we started talking. We soon were discussing a disturbing trend in modern life, paying the premium for what used to be the standard. The Fresh Market, like its competitors Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, is basically selling to a select group of people what the Safeway and A&P used to sell to everyone and they are doing it at price point that keeps swaths of the population out of their stores.

And the population seems to accept this as normal.

The same is true of airline travel. I remember my first airplane trip. My mom took me to Thalhimers Dept. Store to buy a traveling outfit. It was gorgeous and I was gorgeous in it. Every kid in my neighborhood was green with envy because little 8 year old me was about to embark on an adventure. I was going to fly, like the people on TV. I remember walking through National Airport and this time we weren't meeting someone getting off the plane, we were getting on. Everyone was so friendly, so helpful, and so complimentary of my outfit. On the plane, the flight attendant called me Miss and brought me treats. The pilot came back and talked to us and even gave me my own set of wings because he had heard it was my first flight. I felt like a princess. I knew then that I wanted to fly everywhere when I grew up. I wanted to fly around the world.

Today, I hate flying. The lines are long, no one is friendly and traveling outfits? what are they?

Now some people will say that there is a lack of civility in modern life because people today just are meaner than they used to be. There may be some truth to that but that's not the whole truth. We have engineered our society, or allowed our society to be engineered, in such a way that we reserved for the rich not just the silly perks of wealth, but also things like common courtesy and leg room, the things that used to be the standard.

And that is why the poor will someday riot and storm the gates of golf course communities. Not because they want neck massages and access to the champagne room, but because they want elbow room in the middle seat.

 

[Underseer]

You are complaining about two opposite processes.

In the first case, things are becoming more expensive, so stuff of the same quality costs more. Because the economy continued expanding while most people's wages stagnated, what used to be normal grocery items are now a luxury. Regular people have to settle for lower quality because their wages have not kept up with the economy.

Airplanes are something that has moved in the opposite direction. Air travel used to be prohibitively expensive for most. If you still want to spend exhorbitant amounts of money like people used to, you can fly first class and get more or less the same experience you remember, but those first class tickets are probably comparable to regular airline tickets when adjusted for inflation. Of course, the things making air travel cheaper are part of what's making quality groceries more expensive (e.g. paying wage earners less money).