Vape-o-nomics: Why Everything is Addictive Now

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A video about disposable vapes, and how addiction became the goal of every single company on the planet.
Written, directed and presented by Tom Nicholas.
Edited by Georgia Burrows.
Chapters
00:00 Disposable Vapes Have Taken Over
01:51 A History of the World in 100 Objects
04:23 This Vape is Really Moreish
07:28 Limbic Capitalism
09:27 Addictive By Design
13:18 Insulin & Evergreening
17:00 The Razor and Blade Model
22:12 ...as a Service
27:00 Get 'em While They're Young
30:40 Picking and Choosing
Bibliography
You can find a bibliography for this video on my Patreon, here: / video-vape-o-why-97372475
Disposable vapes have taken over. In just two short years, Elf Bar, Lost Mary and their various competitors have become a ubiquitous part of modern life.
The popularity of these devices among children and young people has led many governments to ban (or consider banning) them. But, I want to look beyond the minutiae of vaping legislation and instead ask what it is about our society that has led these devices to prosper.
This video is the first in a three-part mini-series I'm working on which uses the rise of disposable vapes as a jumping-off point to explore various trends and tensions within contemporary capitalism.
In this first episode: we're looking at addiction, and how companies across our economy have begun to borrow tricks from the vaping industry to design consumer choice out of the system.
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Support my work on Patreon at / tomnicholas
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Twitter: / tom_nicholas
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Website: www.tomnicholas.com
Select footage courtesy of Getty
Music from Epidemic Sound

[@Tom_Nicholas]

Thanks for watching! Hopefully you've noticed that we've really been increasing the production value of what we make over the last year. I'm incredibly proud of the video we're putting out but doing so is fairly costly. If you'd like to support me and my team to make more videos like this then you can do so in a couple of ways: Firstly, you can sign-up to my premium streaming service Nebula (with 40% off an annual plan) at go.nebula.tv/tomnicholas Or, secondly, you can support the channel whilst getting access to video scripts, early bits and weekly updates on what I've been working on at patreon.com/tomnicholas Thanks so much and I hope you enjoyed the video!

[@Zeyede_Siyum]

I love Juuling 💨

[@Alex-rd2ur]

I saw now that you listened to the criticism Tom. Thank you, I'm sure it must have hurt financially but I don't doubt your sincerity anymore. Well done.

[@PvblivsAelivs]

I had to tune out. You kept saying "contemporary capitalism." It gave a very strong feel of an anti-capitalist propaganda piece.

[@WatchMysh]

​​@@PvblivsAelivs It just means we're talking about modern capitalism that's happening now instead of pre WW2.

[@PvblivsAelivs]

@@WatchMysh " It just means we're talking about modern capitalism that's happening now instead of pre WW2." For the video to have merit, you have to be talking about society, rather than saying "capitalism bad."

[@mronewheeler]

We used to find cigarette butts all over the sidewalk. Now we find disposable vapes with discharged lithium ion batteries in them.

[@Miraihi]

I'm shocked how vaping became like this. 5 and more years ago the vaping devices were finicky but had minimal waste. Disposing of a whole device instead of just recharging and resupplying the liquid is a mind-bogglingly radical downgrade. Can't find the better example of planned obsolescence than this! Not to mention that most vapers were former smokers and many of them were actively trying to gradually switch to zero nicotine liquids.

[@naominekomimi]

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

technology!

[@tikaanipippin]

They are only partially discharged, and at the 3.2 volts they commonly still possess on disposal, they could each power remote controls for household electronics for a year before becoming unusable.

[@felixmoore6781]

@@tikaanipippin Or you recharge them and they don't become unusable.

[@PseudoFiction]

politicians won't stand in the way of companies selling addictions, but then will absolutely criticize someone's addiction as a moral failing

[@darrens3]

Its a win win for zealots and reactionaries on the right. They can have their moral panic and eat it, or smoke it so to speak. I suppose if they didn't have groups of people to blame for things they'd actually have to do their jobs like actually legislate. So for them there's a vested interest in keeping the charade going of criticising the very thing that they themselves are actively allowing to occur and are being lobbied and paid handsomely to keep. So there's no incentive to change, and the aged demographic lap that moral panic shit up like pigs at a trough. So they've got a huge voter base too of people and don't even have to bother to run on policy, they just have to hint or outright state the moral panic and the voters leap into their arms. They don't even have to actually do anything, just point at things and "look look aren't you angry yet!" And those same riled up people when actually questioned on the topic don't know anything about it and can't answer a single specific reason why they were angry at it, other than; "that guy told me to be angry about it." But if you notice the hate is never directed at the product or the people that make it, always the people that use it and are addicted to it though circumstance.

[@luizeduardogomesribeiropen324]

Yes, because those people are hypocrites or grifters. Say one thing isn't bad but then say something to attack you.

[@unconventionalideas5683]

Depends on the politician. Here in the US there is a clear partisan divide.

[@mjjjermaine]

+1

[@atashgallagher5139]

Yay religion

[@realidiotouthere]

one thing i wanted to add to the whole "getting them while they're young" is that certain companies (such as adobe, microsoft, autodesk, national instruments, ST microelectronics, etc) are becoming more and more *directly* involved in schools and schools use their products and teach students to use those products specifically, effectively binding them into what is an "industry standard", dependent on those same companies.

[@Tom_Nicholas]

Yes! This was an area I wanted to touch upon but couldn't quite give it the complexity it needed and so it got left out. There was a big push a while back to get schools to use Chromebooks, which massively benefits Google as Google's software becomes the default software they're used to using.

[@imbobby3566]

I remember using Mozilla Firefox to learn how to use a computer throughout my elementary and middle school years and then I went to highschool and we were pushed towards the google suite, in college it's the same they recommend us to use chrome because some websites could be lacking otherwise and I'm always so depressed about this. Moreover my high school used to be on linux ! So the downgrade is pretty bad.

[@anushagr14]

And coke vending machines

[@daemonspudguy]

If Adobe is gonna try to get customers while they're young, they should probably try to make their software work correctly. I learned how to use various Adobe Creative Cloud programs in my digital marketing course and it basically made me swear off from using them if I can possibly avoid it. It's so fucking bad that I have no words to describe it.

[@ishaalimtiaz6715]

My friend in college told me all about this and the fucked up thing is, while there are a few alternatives, using them is seen as “unprofessional” because they’ve even fucked up the social environment to favour them.

[@kendallgehrke429]

As someone who works in education, I think a lot of adults don't realize how thoroughly kids are addicted to vaping, but also loot boxes (I work in a Title 1 school and we still have kids who spend THOUSANDS) and especially ENERGY DRINKS. We have sixth graders who can't function without energy drinks, and they're often drinking more caffeine than I am. When the high school decided to start selling coffee as a fundraiser, the middle schoolers were trying to argue that they should get access, too, given how thoroughly addicted they are to caffeine -- they couldn't fathom why that was precisely why no one wanted them to be able to get more coffee. As someone who has had a severe, very destructive addiction to caffeine (sparked by a sleep disorder), this has been really hard to watch.

[@merijn5929]

I used to be addicted to loot boxes or just gaming gambling as a teen. It is hard to overstate the impact it has had on my life during those years. Basically all my money and even some debt went towards those industries. This turned into a full-blown gambling addiction as I came of age. I really hope governments shut down these child casinos before more teens or even younger children get addicted.

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

@@merijn5929 I'm so sorry that happened to you & I hope you're healthy + thriving now.

[@hydrogen3266]

I work in education too. My middle schoolers have school-issued iPads, which is nice for their versatility and making everyone have access to the same technology, but I’m really close to going back to a primarily paper classroom. The thing stopping me is mostly environmental, but my kids can’t even keep track of papers I let them keep too. I’ve noticed at this school has quieter, “better behaved” students than other schools, but these students have their eyes glued to their iPads and don’t pay attention in class. They don’t even talk and make noise as much as kids at schools with less tech access. Classroom management has become a lot less about managing the noise and more about making sure my class is looking at their assignment and taking notes and not playing games or scrolling all class long. It’s honestly sad what tech companies are doing to these kids who are developing shorter attention spans and lack of knowledge about delayed gratification. Everything is at their fingertips now, which has the potential to be good in the context of information and learning, but in execution is more about supplying bits of dopamine and constant “entertainment” available. It’s one of those topics that I am passionately frustrated by

[@crytocc]

Do be very careful with writing a dependency on caffeine off as 'addiction', because it is also very often a form of self-medication for untreated ADHD, especially in school environments, which are _extremely_ incompatible with ADHD and difficult to survive otherwise. Many people with ADHD fundamentally need some sort of stimulants to have a functioning brain.

[@-SagesLife-]

Someone fresh out of high school here. I've watched my friends get hooked on vaping since elementary school and have personally been hooked on caffeine since about fourth grade. For me, it was because I saw my parents always drinking coffee (or energy drinks) and thought it was just something adults did, along with smoking. Though it's rare for me to find people's parents smoking cigarettes today I have seen plenty that have switched to vaping and say it isn't bad for them. No one in my life really explained what caffeine addiction is, and by the time I was a sophomore in high school and having 400-800mg of caffeine a day. It doesn't help that there isn't a way to get an energy drink taste without caffeine like there is for coffee. Basically, we see all these older people we look up to surviving off of it so we do the same thing. (it doesn't help that there is no effective anti-vaping commercials in the US)

[@MrHastygamer]

This is why I love Elon Musk because he cured me of my Twitter addiction by making it miserable to use.

[@ryanreedgibson]

Yeah, he also saved me from spending 190k on three Tesla models at the end of 2022. All he had to do was make a post of twitter congratulating a criminal for assaulting a politician's family member. My family is much happier with our Toyotas. And he can keep his trash platform. We don't use that anymore, either.

[@markwilliams2620]

I did not see that happening. You do realize you're being controlled by the woke mob, liberal hive mind and the Illuminati, don't you?!

[@thelemon5069]

Lmao

[@BIGTHANKSHEESH]

The solution is just to make every app horrible to use. Elon did it on accident, but one brave person to do it intentionally

[@MattH-wg7ou]

Yea, letting people speak freely without policitally biased censorship is SOO awful...probably "a grave threat to Our Democracy(tm)" Im not big on Teslas though. Toyota's are the best IMO.

[@lowellthoerner1209]

Me, up at 4AM watching the 25th video in my queue instead of going to bed: _yeah, these vape addicts are really out of control, so glad I’m not addicted to anything_

[@rockyyroadsss]

so real

[@glenmurie]

I would say addictive capitalism started with mobile phones, which hit their stride at about the same time as social media.

[@leonides4377]

At least you’re not killing anyone with it. …

[@Jossarianz]

@@glenmurie why would you say that? This video is literally about nicotine usage

[@kittydaddy2023]

Stop it. Get some help.

[@laughinglynx3762]

I thought it might be helpful to provide additional context regarding the $35 insulin cap that Eli Lilly "chose" to do. I have a professional background in medicare and insurance, and was following this closely as it was unfolding. The Biden administration passed legislation that completely turned Medicare prescription drug coverage upside-down, drastically decreasing prescription costs to many seniors, for some by thousands of dollars a year. As part of this bill, insulin prices for Medicare recipients were capped at $35. In the 2023 State of the Union address, Biden said that he wanted to "finish the job" and cap insulin at $35 for everyone, not just seniors. It's within this context that Eli Lilly and now other pharmaceutical companies "voluntarily" limited what they would charge. They were essentially told "you can't charge this, we won't let you," were forced to change prices for some people, and were promised that regulators would return to force them to change prices for everyone. If the pharmaceutical companies could have kept their profits before, they probably would have, but now by "choosing" to lower prices, they get better PR and still have a legal opening to increase prices later. After all, now that they've lowered prices themselves, why do we need a law enforcing the price cap? I understand why this context wasn't included in the video, as it isn't super relevant to the actual thesis of the video, but I thought it was worth mentioning for those curious about the situation.

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

Thanks for the extra context!

[@dbul2542]

I work in a job that involves monitoring of legislation in my state and this kind of thing drives me nuts. So many times corporations will tout some sort of new thing they’re doing that’s good for consumers or the environment and I know it’s because a law that they opposed is forcing them to do so.

[@negativerainbow]

It's crazy how I miss the era of purchasing a product once, and having it potentially get outdated in a few years. It's wild to me that my parents paid hundreds for a home gym machine, just to end up paying almost as much as a gym membership for access to software on the machine they purchased.

[@bingonight1504]

that's nuts

[@thiccboi2143]

It's crazy how we were on the verge of ending cigarettes for good only for companies to reinvent cigs for children. "Vape pens were tooootally made for adults with mature flavors like cotton candy and berry blast"

[@Tom_Nicholas]

The Juul website in the UK has the tagline "Designed for Adult Smokers" because they're so terrified of getting banned in the UK too.

[@user-op8fg3ny3j]

@@AlexHenry-hh8yj it's a free country, we can let our kids unalive themselves if they want

[@RioTorxx]

Guess I am not an adult then. Damn flavored vapes got me off a 20 year smoking habit AND removed my adult status.

[@unknown6390]

That line of argument is one of the weakest

[@jamesgrover2005]

​@@AlexHenry-hh8yjyep you can do drugs and.. oh wait🤔

[@hannahjoyhopes]

"the opposite of addiction isnt sobriety, its connection." Society is so wrapped up in individualism and capitalism that people just want something -- anything! -- to make life better for just a moment. And capitalism, in true form, turns this very human impulse into more profit

[@flipletape9706]

Yes and no, addiction is addiction. I've always had plenty of connections within society in every aspect. If anything, it's only a herdle in the midst of all of it. I wish it was never there to begin with. But as long as smokes are still there, it's never going to get better.

[@flipletape9706]

I still feel like it's better than cigarets, but I do really wish it was never there to begin with. All of it.

[@ShawnCantwellKnives]

I don't know. Sometimes the reason people keep using is because they keep the same friends.

[@JohnDoeWasntTaken]

@@ShawnCantwellKnives True. I would have quit vaping sooner than I eventually did if I wasn't surrounded by my friends and brother doing it. I still have the same friends cause I love em, I just ignore the fact they vape. Luckily I've finally reached the point where I can resist the urge to ask them for a hit, I know it'll just set me back again.

[@Comrade_mommy]

True, govts are always scrambling to deal with the symptoms but never the root cause bc that would mean confronting capitalism. There will always be genetic factors that when combined with trauma will lead to ppl being addicted, but the numbers would be far lower if we didn’t live under such an exploitative economic system. If we addressed the underlying material conditions that led to so much misery and trauma (poverty is absolutely traumatizing), we would see far fewer ppl becoming addicts. In a perfect world we’d address ppls material conditions and legalize and regulate most drugs while offering robust drug education, and quality rehabilitation. Drugs like tranq, illegal fentanyl and meth would dwindle as ppl had access to pharmaceutical grade drugs. Just look at how bathtub gin fizzled out after prohibition ended. Drug cartels would become legit business and with a safe supply where you knew what you were getting how exactly how strong what you were getting is, would lead to overdoses dropping. Vaping should be regulated the way other nicotine replacement products are, but unfortunately early e-cigg companies made a conscious choice not to go the route of regulation and so there’s very little regulation involved. When you buy nicotine lozenges or gum you can’t get more than 4mg & their safety had to be proved before they were allowed to be sold over the counter. I’m not in favor of prohibition mainly bc it doesn’t work. Unfortunately what would work feels like it’ll never happen, or least won’t happen anytime soon bc to many powerful ppl and corps don’t want it to happen; and bc unfortunately to many of the ppl who benefit from shifting away from a capitalist organization of the economy, have bought into the propaganda that other economic systems are somehow inherently evil & capitalism will eventually benefit them.

[@matthewgilpincom]

Less than a day after this video went up the UK government announced legislation to ban disposable vapes. You're a powerful man, Tom.

[@KrzysztofBob]

As an ex-smoker who switched to proper vapes, with removable, rechargeable batteries, who used to build my own coils and make my own ejuice and who finally quit after gradually reducing the amount of nicotine in my juice, seeing the current state of this industry breaks my heart. I honestly believe that vaping saved mine and couple of my friends lives. I guess never underestimate corporate greed

[@kiliandjfilms]

Vaping works as a bridge to get people away from smoking cigs. But the problem is... a bridge usually works 2 ways, and vaping is no different. Getting kids to try a colourful stick with glowing lights that smells like raspberry is not that hard. And once they are hooked on the act itself, trying out exciting new kinds like ones with lots of nicotine is just a small teenage step away. And before you know it, you have 15 year olds completely "vaping all day long" hooked to the exact same thing cigarettes had people in the 80's, just with a new coat of paint.

[@TyraelDiavolus]

​@@kiliandjfilms I accept your premise, but I reject your conclusion. Vaping in and of itself is not bad, and neither is nicotine. The negative perception comes from the decade-long binding 'nicotine = cigarettes'. As a scientist put it in a hearing for regulators in my country: 'smokers smoke for the nicotine, but they die from the rest'. What I give you, is that children and teenagers shouldn't get access to it - the longer they don't use it, the less likely they are to get hooked. What I don't give you, is the 'gateway effect' to use (more) nicotine. Nobody started smoking for the funny smoke figures you could produce with said smoke, but there was most likely a lot of peer pressure and/or negative influences at home, and a certain proneness to addiction in the first place (with the latter being absolutely normal, nothing to be done about beforehand). And I'm not saying that kids should start vaping nicotine - but there is the option of vaping without, so if they really feel they have to try it, at least they don't need to be exposed to nicotine. But a lot comes down to regulations - and the strict enforcement of them. Ban disposable vapes, make regular vapes available only from a certain age, and send officials to the stores unannounced to check for compliance (and heavily punish failure to comply). You won't get rid of the problem entirely this way, but you would reduce the problem part of the problem massively.

[@chronotopolis8048]

thank you for sharing your story brother

[@AwesometownUSA]

I hate that everything we used to own is now exclusively available as indefinite rentals - paying indefinitely for access to your stuff is extortion, brother!

[@nathanharvey8570]

This is what former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis calls "technofeudalism" (which should really be called technomanorialism). In today's society ownership of factories that are used by workers is less impactful than possession of landlord-esque rent (both in terms of money and serf-labor/data) that can be extracted from everyone, even people not employed by you, and even capitalists themselves.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

​@@nathanharvey8570and landlords are just lords

[@albishie]

I read that last line in Hulk Hogan's voice, but it doesn't change the fact that you're correct.

[@Amfortas]

Stop voting for WEF puppets then

[@davidlane1248]

You can buy refillable and rechargeable vapes that are more affordable than smoking ever was. But hey, you know what you're talking about, so go off fam

[@mynamesnotshanekid813]

I love how late stage captalism innovates in ways that actively makes your life worse.

[@mf4071]

Says the person who's obviously never smoked or would prefer to bring back cigarettes to torture nicotine using adults with zero tolerance cessation methods towards smoking, because it provably causes cancer. Vapers are annoying to people that don't vape, so they need to find a problem with it or help create one. You don't have to use new things that weren't created for you in the first place but you don't have a right to take it away from other adults with bullshit. The same with this idea that people can be addicted to "machines", take that further and people are addicted to electricity, breathing oxygen, or drinking water and when does it end?

[@sangyedorje]

How do you know which stage we are in? Isn't it but over-optimistic?

[@mf4071]

Capitalism has been in the late stages of being terminal to the species and the biosphere for decades. Only the truly delusional would try to bring any of it back as a means of solving problems created by it. Vape juices in my country are tested, regulated and then taxed before sale at the same rate as tobacco products, with candy flavours banned in most Provinces. Nicotine distillate isn't like burning a tobacco plant itself anymore than drugs or pharmaceuticals developed from plants or fungi, are exactly the same as picking those things out of the wild and eating them.

[@mynamesnotshanekid813]

@sangyedorje we can call it late stage capitalism due to the stagnant wages, the massive corporations that run and own everything, and the commodification of almost every basic need, want, and desire. This outcome is inevitable in a market competition, as the winners are more likely to keep winning, causing more and more consolidation of capital in the hands of a few corporations. Hence, the name, late-stage capitalism.

[@mf4071]

@@mynamesnotshanekid813 Wages haven't been keeping up with inflation since before many of us were born, since the early 1970s. We should be in the endemic stage of Capitalism, if it doesn't provide even the basic necessities, as opposed to a previously protracted, sunset phase of it.

[@Mindless402]

I am an organizational psychologist by trade and I have been screaming from the hilltop for anyone that will listen about TikTok having a HUGELY significant negative effect on attention span. Thank you so much for using your platform to make this type of content Tom.

[@timmy3822]

I’ve been using KZbin for eons but only in recent weeks started using the shorts feature. It’s kind of shocking to think how quickly I’ve become fixated on endlessly scrolling through these random short videos. There really needs to be legislation to bring some of these corporations to heel but with the lobbying sector being so strong, and corruption being so endemic in our politics I have very little hope for any meaningful progress.

[@Mindless402]

@@timmy3822 TikTok particularly is actively being weaponized against us and nobody even realizes it

[@stephantual]

The irony of course, being that we're both watching this video on the most monopolistic, most aggressive and restrictive streaming platform of all time. This could be watched on open source software and hosted on tom's server.. but it's not and never will be. If you pay attention you'll find most of your young clients want to be 'entrepreuneurs' for some bizarre reasons... What sort of ethical standard do you think they will hold themselves to? Lower than the current one. And so on, and so forth, ad vitam eternam.

[@hedgehog3180]

Can you refer to any studies on this?

[@Mindless402]

@@hedgehog3180 it’s impossible to have conducted a longitudinal study (which is what your study would have to be to measure this) on the effects of TikTok because it hasn’t been out long enough. I just put in “attention span technology” into Google scholar and there are plenty of tangential studies that you can look through yourself though.

[@hachi-machi]

I can't properly express what the animation you included during the "refreshing feed is like a one hand bandit" comparison has done to my brain. Straight up rewired it. Any time I catch myself refreshing the feed I recall "you are now the ceo of the world" and the absurdity hits me and I immediately stop and put my phone down. Thanks!!

[@electromigue]

This is one of the most important topics of our era. I used to work for mobile gaming companies and all their products are addictive habit inducing psy-ops. It's disgusting how enslaved people would get with the games. I managed a team that dealt with players that spent over 100k USD in-game.

[@Antody]

No one can oppose these companies. As long as they're making money and have a huge lobby in each government, there isn't much we can change.

[@rafaelgabrielgarlinidal-bo9496]

no problem at all then. Game is game.

[@RealDonaldDrumpf]

Yeah it’s pretty gross how companies are using mobile gaming to profit off gambling without all the regulations. Government intervention is long overdue in the industry.

[@RealDonaldDrumpf]

Regulation is long overdue for the mobile gaming industry. They operate digital casinos with very few restrictions and children as clientele.

[@SuperLifestream]

​@RaildiaSizta the people that are in government, yours and mine, aren't smart enought to understand how mobile/gaming effects people. They can't even comprehend it

[@ConradNeill]

It wasn't always like this. I owned a vape store back in 2015. The devices at that time were less convenient than they are now. Coils had to be replaced, and batteries had to be recharged. The only tanks that provided a good flavor and a satisfying draw had to be rebuilt by hand. This put many people off because it was just too much hassle. Vaping broke my tobacco habit, and my lung capacity recovered noticeably within a few months of swapping tobacco for vapor. I felt that I was helping people quit smoking tobacco like I had, and I genuinely wanted to help others stop smoking tobacco. My pitch to customers was as follows. The hardest part of stopping smoking is the hand-to-mouth action, which is why many people gain weight after stopping tobacco: they replace smoking with eating. E-liquids are available with high doses of nicotine but don't start at the highest dose. Start at the lowest dose and aim to ween yourself off nicotine before you attempt to break the hand-to-mouth habit. Don't buy a cheap vape pen because you won't get the satisfaction of a good draw. I would tell them that I didn't want them to be my customer for any longer than it took them to quit. I know for a fact that I helped many people stop smoking tobacco and eventually quit vaping, too. If a non-smoker wanted to start vaping, I would actively try and discourage them. I guess that makes me a bad businessman, but I'd rather be a bad businessman than a good one with a heavy conscience. When the tobacco companies realized that they were losing people to vaping, things changed rapidly. The conspiracy theorist in me was convinced that big pharma wasn't too happy that they wouldn't get to sell their overpriced drugs to those who developed health problems due to smoking tobacco. Around the same time, companies like Juul appeared, and I knew that this potentially life-saving alternative to smoking had been lost to corporate greed. These companies had money behind them, which meant they could afford to lobby governments to pass laws that made it difficult for small retailers like me to stay in business. This is what led to pod systems and disposables taking over the market. The blame for the vaping epidemic amongst young people should be attributed to governments and tobacco industry lobbyists. It makes me sad and angry to see vaping become the next evolution in the tobacco industry's quest to generate even more profit by getting more people, including young people, addicted. That's not what vapes were invented for. Greed and corruption have taken something that could have had such a positive effect and turned it into a massive profit-generating industry to replace the one slowly being legislated out of business. For the record, the flavors are not the problem. Nice flavors highlight how disgusting tobacco tastes. Flavors are a good thing. The problem lies in the marketing of those flavors and the overly convenient nicotine delivery systems. Lastly, marketing vape pens to young people is unforgivable.

[@Yixdy]

Great comment, I'm 11 years deep myself, vaping has always been demonized unfairly, but man this recent wave of disposables really really sucks

[@boiledelephant]

Thank you for writing this.

[@ImaginaryChannel]

Thanks! Back in college, a big decade ago, I've taken courses on how vaping helps people quit smoking. I was taught exactly what you describe: health benefits of not inhaling tobacco, nicotine not being directly harmful but which you'd have to slowly reduce over time to quit it eventually. And that even though there were concerns that people that never smoked might adopt vaping and might eventually go on smoking, the studies didn't show that that would be likely (yet). I think promoting vaping did save lives, but I'm sad to see that capitalism has taken over and wants everyone to stay addicted. A lot of people get rich of exploiting people vulnerable to addiction and I hope to see a fight back, a system that rewards companies for solving problems and getting rid of them instead of keeping those problems going to milk those who suffer from them. Thanks for trying to be part of the solution.

[@Miraihi]

I remember my friend's reason for smoking was something like "I don't like just standing around like a moron when waiting for something, I need my hands busy". So vaping became his way to quit tobacco. Unfortunately he relapsed after years of not smoking, but it lasted for him a good while.

[@tanyaglass2271]

Wonderful write up, it's exactly how I remember vape shops and devices from that same time period. It was a niche and slightly cumbersome product, most of my friend's vaping devices looked like old nokia phones with straws attached and you had to mix the liquids yourself. Most used it to reduce or quit smoking, although there already was a minority of people who did it for the fancy flavors (but they overlapped with the hookah smoking demographic, which is it's own thing). When I tried using it to quit, I actually bought tobacco flavored liquid to make it feel more like the real deal. I must say I love the idea of those new tiny vape pens for the convenience, but I hate the combo of them being disposable and candy-flavored ...

[@jayunito]

You've hit it on the head - everything feels/is addictive, from the toxic design of social media to even the increasing sweetness of fruits at the supermarket. How am I meant to feel liberty if my dopamine is constantly on the edge from addiction abuse...

[@wofi784]

This feels like something that would go on TV as a Channel 4 News segment or something, extremely well made, bravo

[@sweetcornwhiskey]

15:10 Insulin patent holders didn't actually stop selling insulin at exorbitant prices because of bad PR. They actually stopped because the price of insulin in the US was capped under the Inflation Reduction Act. They only stopped because they were literally forced to do so by the government.

[@tf_9047]

And because a really smart person stole their Twitter verification and caused a PR 'disaster'

[@WindsorMason]

It's really sad that so many good things have been squeezed out, despite the messy process, these past four years, but few people seem to realize them. It'll probably take a while for all of it to really make a difference, but the positive impacts felt so far aren't being recognized because people are so stressed and only negative things get attention. :(

[@XenobladeXSupremacy]

​@@tf_9047Honestly that was one of the best things to come out of the change in ownership (aside from community notes)

[@TheRockerX]

@@tf_9047 more like an extremely online billionaire made the idiotic decision to allow anyone who pays an $8 fee to get a blue checkmark on Twitter

[@iantaakalla8180]

The problem is this: yeah, insulin may be cheaper because of outrage, but who isn’t to say insulin-producing medical companies will find a way to hike up insulin again? Much less prey on another group now they have let insulin alone?

[@hipsnowsis7374]

Hi Everyone - important note! Literally 1 hour after this went up, disposable vapes are to be banned in the UK!

[@butt317]

Tom controls the UK government CONFIRMED

[@heisenbachofficial9437]

Damn, they reacted quickly

[@sooupys]

Bans have also begun rolling out over in Australia too!

[@eeryglo]

Thank you for banning disposable vapes tom Nicholas!!!

[@jayluper9523]

Oman also banned all electronic cigarettes this month

[@grand1nquisitor]

23:47 this is wrong, Adobe does charge you a fee if you cancel. From their website: “Note: After 14 days, a cancellation fee (early termination fee) of 50% of the remaining balance of the contract applies. For example, if you cancel in the ninth month, you pay 50% of the fee for the three remaining months. Why am I charged a fee if I cancel the plan? Your purchase of a yearly subscription comes with a significant discount. Therefore, a cancellation fee applies if you cancel before the year ends.”

[@aaabbb-rn6sj]

He said you can cancel for free after the 1 year period, lol you can’t even hear properly

[@ImortalZeus13]

I had this happen to me! I accidentally signed up for a service that I only wanted for one month, but was charged an exit fee because it was actually a year long commitment. The solution? Going to customer service and demanding them remove me from their subscription or else I’ll never give them money for Adobe Suite again.

[@grand1nquisitor]

@@aaabbb-rn6sjyour wrong as well and spreading disinformation. 23:48 He said “from a maximum of a year after which they are entirely free to cancel”. Clearly if you had any critical thinking skills you would understand the nuance of my comment.

[@asadfarraj]

That's why it's always morally right to pirate Adobe products. Or better yet, support competitors and build a community around them

[@floppyearfriend]

​@@grand1nquisitorCan you explain the nuances of your comment? What he said sounds about right.

[@Jupa]

I was driving and stopped at the road to let some school kids cross. I was vaping. Kid saw me and asked if he could have a draw. At the time I had no idea if he was being serious, but I said no anyway. He seemed very frustrated. It’s a terrible habit, and it preys on kids. No doubt. Switching to Nicotine gum has been helpful. The biggest issue is the 24 hour access. Whilst banning smoking forced people to pick and choose their nicotine time.

[@PingSharp]

That is exactly why Snus (nicotine patches) are so horribly addictive. Some have twice as much nicotine as your average cigarette (20 milligrams in one patch), and being able to do it whenever you want is dangerously addictive. Do that ten times a day, and you are me half a year ago But yes, nicotine gum is the way to go. The key to quitting is doing it gradually, then knowing that the drug still tries to pull the strings in your head, more than a month after you quit completely. The nicotine gums didn't go lower than 2mg where I got them (seems a bit shady ngl), so I cut them into quarters

[@interesting2491]

You don’t ‘have’ to do this…But when I used to smoke cigarettes, I would hide the cig or stop smoking briefly whilst walking past children because I know how easily influenced they are and how I used to see ‘adults’ smoking and wanting to mimic that behaviour.

[@MotherofThePearls]

The irony of the sponsor of the video being a subscription service and yet another app to download is not lost on me 😂

[@andriana5311]

Exactly!!

[@valkyriekl]

Video describes an addiction economy, ends with "please subscribe". Ironic.

[@phillystevesteak6982]

​@@valkyriekljust because you're aware of the pitfalls our society created, I suppose doesn't mean you can just not participate realistically.

[@archermadsen7744]

@@valkyriekl Tom is talking about paid subscription services. Subscribing to a yt channel is completely free, so not really relevant to the subject.

[@pitel_palkel]

Well Nebula is pretty good for the creators on it. You can criticize society but you still live in the present, gotta eat somehow

[@beetl_3]

the slot machine refresh comparison is crazy. When I get upset and am on my phone, I find myself refreshing in the same way that I find myself gambling (I'm a recovered gambling addict). I never would have connected these behaviours, but it literally feels the same way. One more pull and i'll find something that will make me happy.

[@lissie3669]

This comment literally ruined my life you’re so right

[@asmrsona3170]

And as soon as you find that "happy hit", you're sucked right back into looking for another because of all the garbage you had to wade through to get it that is now littering your brain. It seems the only way to win is not to play. 😑

[@JH-pt6ih]

There is a video somewhere on youtube, which unfortunately I can not even begin to give you a clue as to how to find it, of a woman who was doing a study on gambling addiction and they were looking at the newer all digital slot machines, with no arm to pull and over the top flashing lights. After a while she noticed that some of the addicted players would actually get upset when they won, because it caused a break in the game - they weren't addicted to the gambling; they were addicted to the flashing lights.

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

I'm personally of the opinion that it's a slightly too literal comparison - I remember hearing a lot of people (myself incised) being very skeptical of this take or even laughing at it when it was first published, but it is absolutely true in that a simple, repetitive but deliberate interface action will intermittently reward you with dopamine in both cases

[@SReads-dh4rr]

​@@lissie3669I think its fine. Its better than gambling if you're able to replace it with something less harmful. Just be mindful of what content its showing you.

[@patriciotrincadovera4660]

The irony of a subscription based service sponsoring a video criticizing subscription based services. But as old Carlitos Marx used to say: "capitalism carries the seeds of its own destruction". Great video. as always

[@Amfortas]

A-any day now, right comrade? 😂

[@egirlSkeletor]

I think its aoso important to think about how, especially with things like nicotine and caffeine, the use of it to cope with the stress and exhaustion of a lot of jobs fuels the addiction further

[@beepoboopo546]

As someone with ADHD I'm sure I've always had it, and this latest war on our attentions hasn't "caused" it but goddamn it's not a surprise that the year we all spent working from home and on our phones (2020) was the start of a huge spike in people needing to seek help. This modern world is actively targeting us.

[@juulian1306]

I'm ADHD too and it causes me to be so susceptible to certain addictive behaviors, that I have to cut out certain things completely. I just know that I can't control myself around them enough. This includes potato chips and chocolate but also mobile games and some social media websites for example.

[@kathleensavoy1736]

Speaking of ADHD, there's the "inattentive consumer" angle that exploits us exponentially - how many free trials have become at least one month paid (automatically, of course) because we forgot to cancel before the end of the trial? Amazon now seems to have a reminder service, but it's opt-in, and you can easily overlook the option whilst signing up. These can really add up - I paid for LinkedIn for months because I had entirely forgotten to cancel after pausing my job search one year, and they were charging $90 CAD at the time (a time at which $90 could have paid 2 weeks of groceries). Oh, and then there are the subscription based lifestyle/organisational apps which are marketed towards ADHD folks, but are mostly just productivity hacks which work better for neurotypical people. And more broadly speaking (neurologically), anyone trying to build or maintain a creative career which requires use of softwares like Adobe's Creative packages are now presented with a classist barrier to entry.

[@ruriryan9041]

​@@Daniel_Meyersyou literally giving adhd ppl a reason not to quit or even start vaping, great job

[@AdamOwenBrowning]

@@Daniel_Meyers Mandating yourself to a nicotine dependence is like choosing to rout your sewerage into your clean sources of water. Even just nicotine salts, swirled about in your bloodstream for 4-8 years, will do some very negative things to your body that are not worth it. I quit any nicotine intake because it's so damn bad for you. I also have ADHD. I don't take stimulants. It'd make my day easier - but anyone would find their day easier riding along with amphetamines in the system or a nice bump of nicotine.

[@aaabbb-rn6sj]

@@Daniel_Meyers just control yourself, or do you need the government to manage your entire life?

[@here-be-ember]

I hope the irony of talking about how predatory subscription services are for half an hour to then pivot to an ad read for a subscription is not lost on you Tom, but I get it, we all need to put food on our tables.

[@BravoShield]

This!

[@blu-]

He should have put it at the beginning, that transition was upsetting lmao

[@WindsorMason]

​@@blu- I figured the end was a better place since fewer people would see it and those that would could reflect on that they learned in the rest of the episode. But yeah, that transition though... Lol

[@cadekachelmeier7251]

"So in conclusion, capatalism is evil and you should never trust a corporation to do anything good for you. ... Anyway, please go buy this thing."

[@Khunkurisu]

I like his content fine but he’s a bit of a hypocrite with the ad reads he does. Some of these videos clearly shouldn’t be sponsored because doing so very much contradicts his own points. It bothers me more than it probably should tbh.

[@catcatcatcatcatcatcatcatcatca]

As a smoker and someone studying electrical repairs,who also owns one of those bulky old vapes I can’t stand the single use vapes. The idea of using the single use lithium batteries (or “super capacitors”) like this is just so incredibly wasteful it’s hard to describe. Not to mention how I have seen them disposed on the ground, with the battery exposed. They are dangerous waste and a potential fire hazard if damaged. But worst of all for me is the fact these are rare earth resources on high demand for sensible use cases such as EV batteries. Wast majority of applications for single-use batteries lasted much longer yet we got rid of alkaline batteries for environmental reasons. The likely reason the product is designed like that is the simplicity of its purpose compared to recharging a battery safely. It would be much harder to safely juice up a battery than it is to fry some nicotine juice.

[@idontwantahandlethough]

yeah, it's kinda wild. Not only is the extra plastic (and batteries) a gigantic waste, it costs like 400% more!! I wish people knew that you can buy cheap bulk flavors and nicotine juice online for a fraction of the price. You can even play mad vape scientist and start making your own crazy flavors!! Blueberry bavarian cream pie is my most recent concotion 🤗 I suppose the unit makes the up-front cost a little more, but it easily pays for itself within a couple of months! (some people worry about the ethics of online vape sellers, and that's valid. However, it's not like the regular, disposable vape companies are known for giving a shit about their customer's health anyway, so i'm not sure it's any different. Regardless, there are some good and reputable vendors if you look for them.)

[@straightshooter3693]

original electronic vapor making was in an old Lionel steam engine , using mineral oil and a coil....................................... never was anything really new.... all juice and nicotine is tainted and not regulated fully and properly from china, poisioning every user... clean organic tobacco or even cow dung is better

[@alexander_avila]

Very well researched with very helpful concrete examples... Loved it, and looking forward to the next installment :)

[@tikaanipippin]

An Ex-smoker of over 17 years now, I have been fascinated by these disposed devices, each having a Lithium-ion cell inside that has never been recharged, and has a potential lifetime of over 100 recharge cycles. Only a small number of recovered vape batteries have been irreversibly over-discharged, so potentially they have a future to store renewable energy at home. The plastic, stainless steel, and aluminium casings are not easily dismantled for disposal and recycling, made more challenging by the potentially pyrophoric cell inside if damaged. Also, the nicotine content is a danger to wildlife being toxic to small mammals and lethal to insects. The glycerol and propylene glycol solvent and nebulizing agents also have a sweet taste that could harm children and pets if they were to encounter them. Discarded insulin may be just as lethal to those who are not medically required to use it without control. Insulin has been described as "the perfect murder weapon", leaving no toxicological trace apart from an easily concealed fine needle puncture wound.

[@SianaGearz]

The soft-pouch cylindrical cells found in these are manufactured to a very low quality and are not intended to take charge repeatedly. I have collected some and have extracted and store discharged and secured a handful of cells, but i wonder how long it takes for them to have a "thermal event". They seem adequate to power a small device, but i wouldn't be running a massive home-powering array of them, and wouldn't put them to use where they might be charged unattended.

[@bornach]

​@@SianaGearz In spite of the poor quality battery, many single-use vapes feature USB-C recharge ports. This allows manufacturers to put oversized atomiser tanks on undersized batteries. The poor battery then gets discharged to close to 3V when the vape stops working, then the user charges it to 4.2V and repeats this over and over until the tank is empty.

[@reezlaw]

"The glycerol and propylene glycol solvent and nebulizing agents also have a sweet taste" no, glycerol and PG ARE the "nebulizing agents", all they do is create mist when heated, and they are tasteless. They're not used as "solvents" which is a somewhat scary word people like to throw in there to make it sound as bad as possible. The only problem here is the "disposable" part of "disposable vapes". We had been vaping happily for over a decade before big tobacco, seeing that their efforts to destroy the industry with false claims and funding studies that didn't give the results they had hoped for, decided to join it instead. Disposables are a disgrace that have ruined vaping, and especially its image. Now the only ones still trying to kill it are members of big pharma, who saw sales of their stupid gums and patches plummet because of it. But they still fail to produce decent studies proving that somehow vaping is as harmful as smoking. Because it isn't. Polluting the environment with tons of plastic and discarded lithium cells, yes. That's more harmful than cigarette butts. Disposable vapes should be banned, and responsible vaping should be encouraged and facilitated for smokers who want to live longer and breathe better. That's it

[@StevetheWizard2591]

@@reezlaw Friend, speaking from firsthand experience, propylene glycol isn't tasteless. It's sweet, but in an "artificial sweetener" way. It's classified as "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA, so because of its humactant properties, it's a common additive to foods that need to keep their moisture intact while still keeping a long shelf-life. It's also used as an alternative to ethylene glycol (which is allegedly also sweet, but is very much a toxic chemical, so you should under no circumstances consume it in any way, shape, or form) as antifreeze/coolant, mostly in situations where being able to keeping the water it's added to potable is a requirement (iirc, it's common for use in boats and RVs). Additionally, there are other "nebulizing agents" (which I've always referred to as the base or bases) used in vape liquids (a buddy of mine used make his own using vegetable glycerine, various flavor extracts, and nicotine salts, and most commonly available liquids for refillable devices are either pure vegetable glycerine or a vg/pg blend). Propylene glycol is used commonly in disposables because it's cheap (which, let's face it, cheaping out on production is their main concern), it's a relatively thin fluid (as opposed to vegetable glycerine, which is pretty thick, so it can cause flow problems in cheaply-constructed devices), it vaporizes at a relatively low temperature (meaning you don't have to have the device's coil get as hot as with other bases), and, as stated previously, it's classed as "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA (which gets them off the hook for any claim of "dangerous chemicals"). That all said, the main issue posed by this objection is that it's a sweet liquid with candy-style flavors in it that also contains (on average) 40 mg of nicotine per ml of liquid, meaning that since there are records of children dying from consuming as little as 6 mg of nicotine, it's probably a concern people are tossing out devices that could still have traces of this liquid in it independent of any other concerns.

[@reezlaw]

@@StevetheWizard2591 that's another misconception, disposable vapes contain nicotine salts, it's not the same as free base and those numbers look much bigger than they are. Nobody would be able to vape 50mg/ml free base nicotine liquid. The problem with the salts is that it's smoother than free base, so it definitely looks like it's designed to get people hooked by delivering as much nicotine as possible without being too harsh on the throat, getting people as addicted as possible. Disposables are an abomination

[@Ariel_is_a_dreamer]

The fact the add at the end of this video is for a subscription service 😭 we are in hell, aren't we?

[@RileyDurbin-we5bf]

Obviously, you can't own a personal trainer.

[@tf_9047]

Yes, the sponsor is in bad taste. But of all the things you can subscribe to, a service that benefits from improving your health (by addicting you to the positive feelings of exercise) isn't THAT bad.

[@lunarna]

@@tf_9047 There are free ways to do that, it's just addicting you to the service

[@hugofontes5708]

​@@tf_9047definitely healthier than "healthy smoking", and more reasonable for being an actual service and not just "as a service"

[@cami5173]

@@tf_9047 literally one of the most predatory industries but yeah health is good.

[@NesDoinThings]

As a teen, pretty much everything that we do is addictive now. I like to think that i'm one upping all the vapers and all the other addictions that's going around, and yet here I am still sitting here watching youtube videos.

[@RequiemWraith]

I'm a recent adopter of Spotify, and it wasn't entirely willingly, but driven by necessity. Most cars now don't have CD players, mine is from 2013 and doesn't have one. Add to that (I suspect the two are linked) many artists now don't release CDs. So if I want to listen to music in my car, I need either a service or an mp3 player, and given the lack of supply of CDs from artists, services becomes the default option.

[@katiefrances531]

if your car has an aux port, you could hook up a mini cd player to it. i know that's a bit of a hassle though. otherwise, mp3 players are extremely good and if you feel guilty about pirating music for them, a lot of artists offer mp3 downloads of their music as a digital purchase. it's all very frustrating. i also use spotify frequently but i recently dusted off my mp3 player and started taking it to work with me. it takes a weight off my mind.

[@joey0guy]

Just to note: student discounts also means that those products are represented as the industry standard. When many students are familiar with your suite of products, that'll drive the direction of how the industry evolves.

[@hund4440]

Microsoft managed to have governments pay for teaching children to use their operating system and programa like word, exel, pp etc. All while open source versions have existed like libre office. Using windows instead of linux i consider okay, while even that is debateable as my IT teacher in highschool only let us use linux in class, showing that it is possible.

[@Alexrocks1253]

Avid and Adobe are the worst with this too. $100/yr for avid turns to $300, $20/month for all apps turns to $50. It’s ridiculous and is why I really like software like DaVinci resolve and FL studio for having perpetual licenses.

[@ImortalZeus13]

Exactly. You lock in fresh new artists and make them rely on your tools for comfort so that you’ll have them paying you for the rest of their lives

[@FunkiestChickenlawl]

This shift to a subscription economy is why I will always prioritize open source software alternatives before anything else. In a lot of cases, they can even be better than the "industry standard" tools available. Biggest example is Blender. It's gotten so good to the point where it pretty much does everything Maya can do, and more, while also not having as many downsides, like the shitty UI or weird lag when doing simple tasks like retopology. I've used maya myself in college and found it generally lacking compared to blender in all areas except maybe rendering. Using software like this makes it really hard to justify spending thousands of dollars for a service that is outdone by a free product.

[@bobbirdsong6825]

Imagine the type of utopia we would be in if everyone working on software were in a cooperative funded by government grants rather than a competitive economy that cares not for how good things are, but for how they can make money better

[@guy-sl3kr]

@@Thalasaur lmao are you a capitalist? Buzz off

[@NoName......]

​@@Thalasaur How the hell can you say that all 100 million of those death were the result of communism?

[@TheHaighus]

@@Thalasaur Yet the entire ecosystem of open source software exists in direct contravention to a commercial imperative being required to drive innovation. Just in the last month, I was forced to switch from a proprietary statistics package (SPSS) to a free, open source package (R) because SPSS didn't have the breadth of functionality I needed when R had multiple (free) packages available covering the area I needed. On top of that, R was much, much more efficient in running the kind of analysis I needed and therefore far quicker. I'm talking minutes vs days to run a similar analysis. For R, I am also able to check the source code, underlying assumptions, and see discussions and commentary about the design choices of the creators, I can even ask the creators of a given package a question about how it works. In the worst case scenario, I could program a new function myself. Meanwhile SPSS was a black box where I simply have to trust the software analyses stuff correctly and if I need a new feature it is added at the whims of IBM. I was only using SPSS in the first place because of the kind of mechanisms presented in the video, and I am not planning to go back. R has largely been and still is being created by people who are not financially rewarded for producing it. This is a single example, but there are definitely plenty of other areas where open source software provides a better, more flexible, and more ethical product than the capitalist proprietary equivalent.

[@TheHaighus]

@@Thalasaur Good question. When was the last big software innovation breakthrough in general? I think most innovation is much more incremental than generally credited, and success of a given platform is often more related to marketing, competition suppression, and market share effects than quality of the platform. Re. stats: essentially they are both general purpose statistics packages that allow you to manipulate and analyse data in a variety of ways, from a simple average to complex statistical models like linear mixed models. Base R can cover a lot of functions, but there is typically at least one add-on R package for any specialised application you can think of. So if you need a job-specific suite of tools, it is almost certainly available. SPSS has what it has. In my case, I was analysing data relating to cancer research, but the statistical concepts I was using are not specific to cancer research, but worked for my dataset- it needed to be able to accommodate a large number of repeated measurements, which requires a complex model. Such models are also useful in all kinds of settings where multiple measurements are made over time, such as geology or studying crop yields or educational test scores. R demonstrates that it translates cutting-edge statistical concepts (from academic literature) into functioning packages very rapidly and is typically ahead of the curve. A lot of academic stats articles are actually in relation to R packages. I think Android is actually fascinating. It has essentially been developed as an open source loss leader by Google, and they have made signs they want to claw back more proprietary control over it. However, Android is open source and anyone can make their own version or apps if they want, so it is much less constrained than, say, iPhones. I have a number of open sources apps on my phone installed via the Fdroid repository that is an alternative to the Play store. I do think that proprietary software is often, but by no means universally more user-friendly to new users and often more aesthetically pleasing. However, I think that initial ease of use often comes at a cost in breadth of functionality and impaired learning for any available complex features later. To use my example above, SPSS is easier to do basic functions on. However more complex tasks are better done through syntax programming (the menus stop being intuitive quickly) in the console, which is not a straightforward switch and then looses any accessibility benefit over programming in R.

[@croft4746]

As somebody with an addictive personality, who also works in hospitality, I often find myself fighting the urge to start vaping again, but I still haven’t for a couple years now and these kinds of videos help :)

[@classicsteakZ096]

I've been complaining about subscription models for years now. This video is so cathartic to watch!

[@behemoththekitty]

As someone who works in the beauty industry (cosmetics) this buissnes model truly is everywhere! Esthetic clinics now sell annual beauty subscription packages which include a set number of botox and filler injections per year. The spike in excessively agumenteded appearances can be at least partially blamed on the adoption of this subscription format.

[@lissie3669]

I see around me all the time that excessive skincare is ruining peoples skin as well

[@hugofontes5708]

Thank you, you just blew my mind and connected some dots

[@JH-pt6ih]

Now I know what has happened to Tom Brady's lips.

[@connection_ok]

What's also interesting is that it's often the people who are trapped in addictive business models who are punished, rather than the companies selling the product. The trend of today's laws is that kids will be hit with a fine for vaping, be banned off video games in China, or be fined for using Instagram if they're 15, but the corporations providing these services are allowed to continue as normal. What was especially unsettling to me is that Instagram itself ran ads saying it supported a ban of social media for kids under 16... Why are they supporting a ban of a service that they're responsible for providing, and that they themselves can fix?

[@yurisei6732]

Which is fine, because there are a lot of things that adults should be allowed to participate in and children should not. The problem is more that the parents aren't being punished for failing to protect their children. Companies are only a problem (in this specific regard) when they're actively marketing products to people who are not allowed to use them.

[@oiytd5wugho]

@@yurisei6732 Right... because you should hover over your kid 24/7 and micromanage all their activities. You cannot prevent a kid from doing things behind your back without some kind of abuse. This take strikes me as the US mentality of not letting kids take a bus on their own, or go to a park by themselves. Punishing parents for a kid trying vapes at school has the same energy as calling CPS because some kid is playing outside unsupervised.

[@bobbirdsong6825]

@@yurisei6732the issue is systemic in my opinion. Kids are given few options, little independence, and are often living in areas that limit their ability to do fun things outside or interact with competent caretaking adults aside from their parents. Raising children is a full time job, but we live in a system that convinces us it’s reasonable to have both parents away for the entire day so they can hike prices for everything. So half that job is done by phones and iPads instead .

[@luizeduardogomesribeiropen324]

I think companies have realized that selling stuff to children as cool and hip creates a fad that generates millions in profits and keeps kids buying it, because adults won't be responsible enough to take care of their children and teach them morals and critical thinking skills. Heck, I think the US is doomed as a country because they don't like teaching their kids about critical thinking, it's like everyone in there are reactive, going into the offensive against anything they see as bad yet will always attack those who they're defending It's like the US is gonna be doomed to fail because of their own lack of caring or self-entitlement.

[@aaabbb-rn6sj]

So should everyone provide a FUCKING BIRTH CERTIFICATE when registering on instagram?

[@BaronElBardo]

Quick correction about insuline: Not injecting insuline regularly in a diabetic will end in a death, not a chance of death. A long ugly death due to problems develop due to complications of diabetes. Edit: sorry bad wordig, wrote that during a suggar crash😅

[@meem6154]

“Wrote during a sugar crash” lol

[@BaronElBardo]

@@meem6154 I don't know if that's the wording for a "bajón de azúcar" in english xD

[@bomba94K2]

What a fantastic video. So many angles on the topic covered.

[@mullac1992]

I see this in myself. As an adult, I saw the smokers got more breaks with laxer time-limits. I began vaping because I was told it had fewer health risks than smoking.

[@DARKredDOLLAR]

I saw smoking at work among other things as a way to connect with people. My wife has been smoking cigs before we met, slowly she went to heated tobacco then vape. It's safer, and I'm happy she did. But now I picked this habit too. I don't smoke at new work anymore, because I don't want to connect with those people, but I do at home with wife.

[@addammadd]

You can vape straight nicotine free efluid; get all of the break time with none of the sooicide by degrees.

[@lucidnonsense942]

​@@addammadd it's not the nicotine that's the harmful product in vaping fluid. It's the addictive part, but it's not the damaging part - within reason. It's the glycols, ethyls etc that do the long term damage.

[@DARKredDOLLAR]

@@addammadd true, but the ones I tried tasted absolutely horrible.

[@conzmoleman]

It does. Studies say it’s about 5% as bad as smoking. I’d wager it’s even less.

[@mjiii]

And of course this was sponsored by a subscription service. Even a video criticizing the addiction economy can't escape it!

[@Mambo9000012]

I noticed it as well. Critics of capitalism gotta get their pound of flesh as well. Removing peoples freedoms under the guise of protecting them is still considered a virtue.

[@Jakeurb8ty82]

we are all trapped in the same system - the capitalist and the laborer

[@kinghenry7058]

Swing that Ball and Chain.

[@agentzapdos4960]

That's because anyone who isn't making money for our betters with every breath they take, our betters will see to their death.

[@MustbeTheBassest]

"You want to improve the system, yet you are still in it... How curious.. I am very smart!

[@123stickman23]

Fantastic documentary, looking forward to the next couple of episodes Tom!

[@eyetooth]

You've made a lot of incredibly good videos, but this one might be my favourite of them. Eagerly awaiting the next part in this series!

[@Schreibtiscification]

Betting a constitutional right? But education and good food not? What a time to be alive

[@Mambo9000012]

You have a right to waste your own money and health. You don’t have a right for others to pay for yours.

[@orianasilva8712]

@@Mambo9000012delusional

[@Bl4k3.]

@@Mambo9000012 L take

[@yukko_parra]

@@Mambo9000012 so you are saying that the US government prioritises misery over equality. geez what a crap world we live in

[@jeremyfisher8512]

@@Mambo9000012pffft what a kind and generous soul you are 😂

[@OhMeGaGS]

I will never be sorry for pirating adobe software

[@user-qu5nw1ss2w]

Same 🫡 pirated illustrator has been crashing like hell for me whenever I'm connected to the internet. Where do u download ur stuff? 👀

[@frazyfrog]

or any software ever

[@brians1793]

TBH considering a lot of it is sort of niche software for professionals where a lot can make really good money, at least anyone using it professionally should pay for it. It's different when it's not being used professionally but to make money using the software and not buy it is wrong IMO. I'm not sure how much things have changed since Photoshop CS4 when I got a student discount for it 15 years ago or so and it was still $190 down from $400 or so iirc, but I wasn't serious about college(a lot was family pressure, I was more interested in blue collar work) and mostly just dicked around with it lol, like my avatar being Butt-head's face on Vegeta. I don't like the way a lot of software and gaming works though, in some cases I see why pirating is justified and maybe Adobe has changed in ways I don't realize where I guess pirating is a form of protest that in some cases is 100% justified until things change, basically anything that punishes paying customers, but charging a lot for professional Adobe programs I don't think is. It kinda is though when they're basically compensating for piracy, so the cost is why people pirate it but they keep cost high because of piracy rather than combat piracy by making it more affordable if possible. I think even 15 years ago it might have been both hundreds and still for a limited time rather than unlimited access. I'll never forget when I tried Lumosity or a sort of brain-training website which seemed so gimmicky compared to something more legit like Brain Age Concentration Training on 3DS and iirc it was like $250 for a year or something crazy, or maybe it was lifetime access? Either way I remember an amount that high, where you could get a 3DS and a game for not much more than that when the New 3DS came out which fixed a lot of the problems with the original. I literally bought a New 3DS the day I broke my old one just to keep playing Brain Age Concentration Training lol, and for a better experience playing Resident Evil which was pretty amazing actually even though I think I gave up on a tough part or not much after it.

[@zappy7393]

For years and years now.

[@henryglennon3864]

If you want a legal alternative, I'd recommend Affinity. They've made clones of several Adobe products, and they are sold as a one-time payment. I'm an architect, and I've saved thousands of dollars by not paying for an Adobe subscription.

[@djayco1234]

Such a great, in-depth video. Thank you for your effort. Looking forward to seeing more videos.

[@delta__s]

I am positively addicted to your content, Tom! Your videos are addictive by design! Really love your work!

[@Jackpkmn]

My sponsorblock failed (videos too new i think) and I continued into the sponsored segment. After making it 80% through i was starting to think about the addiction angle on the sponsor but then i tabbed over and noticed this was a sponsored segment. It absolutely gut punched me how bad advertisement is, I had totally forgotten with all the adblocking and such just how awful, deceptive, cruel and just plain disgusting advertising is. It makes me honestly sick to my stomach.

[@henrikdewolf6154]

I was about to point out the irony of this video being sponsored but it seems like you beat me to it lol

[@laurenpinschannels]

on youtube, the only way to really be seen is to become the microcapitalist selling resistance

[@ha231]

​@@laurenpinschannelsYeah. There's no ethical way to exist within a capitalist system.

[@andriana5311]

Yeah I was also going to say this, this sponsor is a MONTHLY SUBSCRIBTION Didn't we just talk about this???

[@The_Sportsterman]

@@ha231 then just forego ethics.

[@gailcbull]

As an avid reader and book-buyer, I have committed myself to avoiding using Amazon. I read more printed books so I support independent booksellers and I use my local library’s ebook and audiobook borrowing service. It’s been almost 2 years since ordered anything from Amazon or Audible.

[@ChristopherSadlowski]

Amazon is such a nightmare to navigate anymore that I sort of naturally fell off using it. There's just so much garbage you have to wade through just to find the one obscure thing you need that the local shops don't have. It went from a useful store I sometimes used for little luxuries like games to a slog of trash.

[@podpoe]

same! im trying to avoid them as much as possible

[@CRneu]

The local library is the best.

[@debutchi]

Pdf drive

[@keithparker1346]

Tut tut. But yeah who in their right mind buys books nowadays​@@debutchi

[@jennifergonzalez1383]

I rlly enjoyed how thorough u were in providing information, timeline and how nuanced this topic is

[@Ninja_mage_]

This was an amazing video. Keep up the good work.

[@ThatBugBehindYou]

No one thought cigarette companies would be able to profit off "healthy smoking" yet here we are. Turned out making vaping look cool to "help stop smoking" helped start vaping.

[@KucheKlizma]

The irony was that vaping was helping to stop smoking before the nicotine companies took over to resuce us from ourselves.

[@harpyspeaks]

Yeah like fossil fuel coming up with "clean coal" 🤦‍♂️

[@SineN0mine3]

It's almost impossible to profit from freebase nicotine without this elaborate mind fuck of disposable vapes. If you aren't charging customers for the unit, the nicotine itself is worth a few cents at most. They seem to have been specifically designed as a response to the number of people who stopped smoking in order to vape instead. Due to taxes, tobacco is a major expense for a lot of smokers, but a lifetime supply of freebase nictone can be bought for about as much as a carton. Fortunately for the smokers, most find it easier to control their habit and reduce usage when they're vaping instead. It seems fairly obvious that the thing that needs to stop, is manufacturing and selling single use disposable vapes. Australia decided to go the other way, banning freebase nictone so that the illegal vape market has exploded. Since the amount of nicotine in them is essentially random and they're known to have harmful contaminants and addictives, the manufacturers of disposable vapes ship them without labels of any kind. This means store owners can essentially wash their hands of legal responsibility, if they're caught selling disposable vapes they just say they didn't know. I'm just salty because i meant to order a bottle of liquid before the ban and now i need a prescription for it. What a waste of the doctors time when I can buy any of the "Nicabate" branded products in the supermarket without even needing to prove legal age. I wonder if it's a coincidence that Nicabates products have quadrupled in price since the bans occured. It's almost like the bans were designed to protect profits, rather than people's health.

[@LegoDork]

Doctors used to recommend [cigarette brand] as healthier... in commercials.

[@phiiz3r]

Thing is, a vaping is safer than a smoking. Vapes should have been something that was made avalible to existing adult smokers only on a doctors prescription (like methadone is used to help Heroin adicts quit) instead of being left to the private sector to market & profit from.

[@abagel5968]

It's crazy how often we keep building the Torment Nexus.

[@stalfithrildi5366]

hahha i love that book!!

[@cyber_clit]

I dont know if there are things similar to this in other countries, but in denmark it is virtually impossible to find a place to live in the city without using websites that charge around 45 £ a month for contacting the person renting out the room or apartment. You get 3 days for free and after that it is super annoying and difficult to cancel your subscription. On top of that most of the ads for apartments on the websites are owned by larger companies. great.

[@chrisjones5046]

it took me ages to watch this because you kept reminding me about the problem with my addiction to high quality youtube content and I kept leaving to do whatever it was I was supposed to be doing

[@datoofgaming9370]

Your cinematography and backgrounds are one of the reasons I always return to this channel, great work Tom.

[@Tom_Nicholas]

Ahh, thank you! It means so much for you to say that! We splashed out and bought a gimbal so that we could experiment with filming outside for this one so hopefully that's a fun new addition to the video style!

[@nyarparablepsis872]

Couldn't agree more!

[@My1es]

Tom Scott aesthetic is now open for the taking

[@cyberlyme]

Saw my old home town - Harrow at 31.24 so couldnt agree more :P

[@soshe9582]

Tom Nicholas: Corporations want you to become dependent on their product subscriptions, use psychological manipulation tactics to keep you on board, and offer low initial costs to incentivize initial buy-in, to pilfer your wallet and leave you with nothing. Also Tom Nicholas: Buy this subscription service which gamifies your health using all the tactics discussed earlier, embedding a subscription service into core health practices which you can also do for free.

[@WindsorMason]

Thankfully put at the end so people can do some reflection about what they just learned and/or might exit out first.

[@hugofontes5708]

Still has a professional personal trainer, though

[@bobbirdsong6825]

It’s an app that takes the place of a personal trainer and a notebook. This is like complaining that your therapist charges you every session and tells you to write your thoughts down in exchange for advice and positive affirmation.

[@mynameschelsea8398]

Tom made it big going after ethical breaches of creators like Veritasium and Johnny Harris. It truly is a WTF where is the sincerity moment.

[@chesspiece4257]

surprised the sponsor signed off on this it’s practically a whole video warning against the product, then an ironic scripted ad at the end XD

[@montaguebarnabasltd]

bloody brilliant video. Thoroughly enjoyed each minute.

[@Tianatattoos]

This is amazing thank you for taking the time to do this research and share it with us!

[@BlackComet95]

I think it's crazy how cigarettes now are one of the least addictive things we engage with. From food to video platform algorithms. From gachas to p*rn. Everything is made to hook you in and bleed your wallet and your sanity dry.

[@Tom_Nicholas]

Even at the most basic level, a lot of vapes contain loads more nicotine per puff than a cigarette (and the fact they don't "end" in quite the same way means people use them for much longer than they might if they smoked a single cigarette at a time).

[@lucematt335]

@@Tom_Nicholasthis is actually what drove me to smoking over vaping. I spent so much on new pods that at a point literal cigarettes every 4 days days were easier to afford. I can go 6 hours between cigarettes. But going even 30 mins without a puff from my vape was so hard I couldn’t focus on anything else. I know cigarettes hurt me but I’m in a life situation that makes it nearly infeasible to quit without picking up a different addiction

[@paranoiaproductions1221]

@@lucematt335 Look into nicotine pouches. They're safer than vapes or cigarettes on top of being more affordable. The withdrawal will hit harder though.

[@paranoiaproductions1221]

@BlackComet95 You're just wrong. Cigarettes are extremely addictive. Nicotine is not creates physical dependence as strong as benzos or barbituates it also has an extremely efficient psychological depedence woven into it. The hardest part about quitting smoking is not the withdrawal, it's the habit.

[@Chonkulease]

@@paranoiaproductions1221 As an EX smoker of 11 years, for me the internet is far more addictive than smoking ever was. Also coffee, quitting caffine's a b*tch

[@a52productions]

I've seen a few comments wondering what the alternatives are. How can we avoid any of this predatory shit when it's surrounding our lives. The short answer is that we can't, not completely. But we can do two things. The first is to be aware of it, and keep an eye on your mental health. The second is to ORGANIZE. Join a union, read political theory, participate in local politics, join protest groups -- whatever you can or want to do. We can't change everything immediately, especially not on these large scales. But we can Always make improvements to our lives and the lives of our neighbors if we work together. That can be something as small as changing the practices of your workplace, providing help to the homeless folk in your city, or sharing free/grassroots/open-source resources (food, physical products, digital programs, whatever) in your physical or online community. Or it can be something as big as getting new legislation passed in your state. Capitalists want us to think that we're powerless, and we might be, if we work alone. But when ordinary people work together, we /can/ make real change.

[@podpoe]

yes yes yes!!

[@KathyXie]

You can pirate Photoshop

[@lilithstenhouse267]

the third option is to sail the seven seas meheartey

[@DjDolHaus86]

Or, you know.... regulate predatory practices? Break up market dominance? Stop political parties from taking bribes from these companies in return for not clamping down on them? No, no, you're right. Pass the blame onto the consumer

[@charlierobinson9411]

Hear! Hear!

[@protagonistscience1392]

Very elegant and eloquent video again; always a pleasure to see content that has some depths, research and thought woven into story

[@Tom_Nicholas]

Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it!

[@TheWotato]

Great video again, Tom. Think this is an important fact to discuss as it seems like many people don't even really realise what is happening

I think the only reason vapes are "cool" now is children. Juul "introduced" vaping as a whole and it had great marketting for children which now has some BAD longterm results. 😢

[@lissie3669]

It’s not so much cool as very very very convenient

[@BigBiLeft]

Did you mean to say that the only reason people think it's cool is because of juul's predatory advertising to children?

[@JamesSmith-qs4hx]

Maybe in the next video Tom will review Europa The Last Battle 👀?

[@PlatinumAltaria]

​@@lissie3669 I find it a lot more convenient not to vape xD

[@anarchosherman961]

It really didn't, though. Unless I'm misremembering, I hardly ever saw Juul advertised. It's likely the level of stress that's being introduced back into society. Kids used to smoke back in the day too, this isn't anything new. What's new is the amount of kids who want to use these products before they are of age, which is indicative of something.

[@kerberossi]

I think it would be interesting to bring up how baseball cards were introduced by the cigarette industry, and how that ties into the lootbox economy

[@boiledelephant]

oh damn

[@troy02627]

for anyone here wondering how the hell that happened (spoiler: advertising) theres a great episode of the podcast "behind the bastards" on the tobacco industry and particularly the man who was responsible for making cigarettes such a core part of american society

[@electrosyzygy]

Outstanding work. Always appreciate your perspective!

[@andrewsmith3613]

This is an excellent video and you gave me some interesting books to add to my reading list. Thank you.

[@DeDeDarth]

The fact that this video's sponsor is a subscription-based app, "to help with your fitness and health", really underlines the whole thing. I mean, I have to keep my subscription. For my health!

[@andriana5311]

I am so happy to see I am not the only one who noticed that Now I wonder if that was done on purpose haha

[@cmmartti]

This video has no sponsor though? Apart from his Patreon, which he only mentioned in the end credits.

[@OrangeYTT]

​@@cmmarttiIt's sponsored by Nebula, a Paid VOD service.

[@lassilapintie2478]

I'm addicted to guessing Tom's next topic. I've yet to get my fix.

[@Tom_Nicholas]

The day I first revealed the concept of this trilogy to my video editor, I prefaced it with quite a lot of "okay, so this is gonna sound really weird, but..."

[@Leopoldshark]

Members of Tom's Shiny Gold Patreon Memberships of $15 a month get early access to hints about Tom's next topic. Plus shiny randomized rewards if you predict correctly.

[@chesspiece4257]

@@Leopoldsharkyou can get addicted to your favorite youtubers now too with their own subscription service!

[@NEELZE99]

It's quiet easy. It's some leftist BS

[@gasrat]

I was about to joke about the thumbnail saying "oh I'm sooooo addicted to photoshop" but then it hit me that there are people who cannot stop posying pictures of themselves online and also edit every single one of them into oblivion

[@RHINOunderscore15]

Very well done exposition and commentary on a relevant topic! Subbed

[@daedaluxe]

I've used vaping as a tool to quit smoking sucessfully immediately after picking u vaping twice now. Had been smoking 10+ years and by like 2016 I was sometimes smoking 20 a day and it started becoming expensive as fuck, the moment I started vaping I quit smoking altogether, got really into the DIY scene and starting building my own coils and making my own ejuice. I was making 100ml for 0mg being the most decisive part of me being able to quit entirely, the drops went something like this.. 16mg>12mg>8mg>6mg>3mg>2mg>1mg>0.8mg>0.6mg>0.4mg>0.2mg>0.1mg>0.05mg>Couple drops of nicotine>0mg. And continue vaping 0mg DIY juice for another 2 months before quitting altogether. Then in 2020 I picked up smoking again after a night out, smoked for 6 months, realised it was getting way too expensive even on rollup tobacco and swapped to vapes again. Same deal this 12 mg>0mg over 6 months. Vaping can be an amazing tool if used properly. These elfbars are not that though, these bars need to be outlawed entirely, they pose a significant eco risk are basically a scam as you get .. These bars are just used to scam you into an instant nicotine addiction. If you're daily vaping these scam bars from your local corner shop, why? Stop being a dumbass, you're being scammed, at least buy a £20 mod off amazon and buy 100mg ejuice bottles for £11.99 and separate nicotine so you can ween yourself down.

[@bam-skater]

20-a-day for 30+ years and went onto disposable vapes 23rd December last year. Haven't touched a cigarette since but I know I'm much more addicted to nicotine

[@emanuellandin7403]

@@bam-skater Take all the nicotine you want, there is no comparison to the combustion of cigarette paper, vaping is a harm reducer and does its job perfectly.

[@Yixdy]

​@@bam-skaterthe disposables are. . . Better than smoking, but man that salt form nicotine is far too powerful, try getting a tank system and go with 6mg standard nicotine instead, I promise you'll adjust quickly

[@Yixdy]

Thanks for being the one to make this comment bro, but like. . . It's way too long lol

[@jaehenlee7633]

My story is very similar though I have continued to vape mostly 0mg juice (occasionally I'll have some of a 3mg bottle given to me by a friend). I just enjoy it. I've gotten into rda builds and stuff too and it's now a little hobby for me. Just like I enjoyed smoking, and would have not stopped had it but been for vaping. Smoked for over 20 years, 20-30 cigs a day. Now nicotine free with the rare exception, typically when I drink alcohol, which isn't very often at all. But I do agree the disposables are trash and I worry they will fk it up for the rest of us

[@DrMatthewPhilippsMD]

I think there's some ironic parallels between the dynamics of personal addiction to products in late capitalism and late capitalism's ostensible addiction to accumulating wealth. Like, the psychopathology of "I need to get a hit of nicotine because that's how I've been wired to be and it's all I know" is very much the same as "We need to get the maximum profits because it's what we've been created to do and it's all we know"

[@andreahighsides7756]

It’s because the fractional reserve lending banking system requires exponential (not even just linear) economic growth.

[@Regular-snowman]

Loving the style of the video. The format reminds me of investigative journalism like panorama but talking about things that the TV seems loathe to cover for some reason. Keep it up!

[@JhuanVSales]

This was a great video, amazing research

[@awildpybro6018]

My god, a video essayist with a good upload schedule. You love to see it!

[@Tom_Nicholas]

Haha, I just really like releasing videos! It's fun!

[@the_r4ts]

I am diabetic, type 1. Last week, due to some horrendous bureaucratic issues between a new doctor and new pharmacy, I was without insulin for 17 hours. In this time, despite fasting in an attempt to regulate my blood sugar, I became entirely dysfunctional, not able to fall asleep that night due to the frequency of which I had to regurgitate to relieve my body of ketones (a toxic byproduct of an alternative method of metabolism not involving insulin the body typically reserves for when it is starving). It is no overstatement to say that diabetics have no choice but to purchase insulin.

[@deepdrag8131]

I love to listen to your vids. You are informed and persuasive. Thanks for posting.

[@TomTheEnglishPicker]

Bravo . Fantastic edits and content , Newley subbed

[@binch6291]

For a video that specifically discusses the scam that modern razor companies are, thank you so much for not advertising one of those subscription razor services. My mid-video sponsorship segment instincts were screaming at me for a minute there.

[@bobbirdsong6825]

Funnily enough the original safety razor is probably the best one invented. Easier to use than a straight razor, doesn’t need to be sharpened (but you can sharpen the old razors if you really want), the razors are cheap, and the handles are customizable. Everything is metal so it’s 100% infinitely recyclable. Only issue is that it doesn’t make enough money for the companies, since you can get 100 blades for like 50 bucks or less from most brands and that lasts years. The newer, shittier, difficult to recycle razors that Knick often and last less time are now the standard.

[@binch6291]

@@bobbirdsong6825 oh yeah, I bought a safety razor like 3 years ago and it’s all I’ve used since. Bought a 300 pack of razor blades on Amazon and I’ve still got the majority left. A lot easier to cut yourself, but the shave is as good as any cartridge.

[@maebhryan3040]

My inner totalitarian is never closer to the surface that when I see disposable vapes discarded on the street.

[@TheRunningLeopard]

Fucking mood.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

banning disposable vapes is far from totalitarian. They can make perfectly fine rechargeable ones. Disposable ones are just rechargeable ones without a charge port!

[@a52productions]

blame the companies, not the citizens

[@Yixdy]

I've been vaping for 11 years now, I started vaping before there was even vape stores, and it only started to really anger me when the disposables took the market over, it's absolutely disgusting, all of them have a mysterious cooling effect (think menthol basically) and I have no idea what kind of chemical is causing that effect, it's. . . Worrying to say the least

[@rohamcsigusz]

​@@arkthul8872ah yes blame the addict who is the victim. Ofc they should do something about it, but ultimately its the corporations who are providing the addiction and profiting off of it.

[@Ran_Dum]

Thanks for the video Tom Scott!

[@swirlcrop]

This is a very good topic. Well done.

[@Music34897]

If I had a family doctor I'd ask them about the whiplash I got from watching this video pivot from content about addictive subscription services to an add for an addictive subscription service.

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

I agree that it's a bit sus, but in fairness a fairly traditional style of subscription service with potential harms on the scale of a year long gym membership you use twice in January are at least much smaller than the predatory vendor lock in subscription services being discussed and criticised

[@user-op8fg3ny3j]

Damn, this was a wake-up call that Amazon got me with their student offer for Prime. Never used to order much stuff from them before but now I do 🤦

[@michaeladkins6]

Ive noticed Amazon offers subscription offers for a lot more products than they used to.

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

Georgia thanks for the great editing!

[@DoctorMikeReddy]

I waited for this to be related before watching. Well done for getting it back

[@liamnacinovich8232]

I think the creepiest thing is caffeine in soft drinks. My parents used to say I would get a ‘sugar high’ but looking back on it I’d only get all hyper after drinking coke. They’re essentially hooking kids on an addictive drug very early on alongside with all the sugar. The caffeine ensures that you quite literally crave coke (and as a kid you of course wouldn’t grab a coffee to get your fix)

[@blank1778]

That sugar high was you being hyper there’s a reason why caffeine is a drug and why it’s used to cut other upper like drugs

[@hugofontes5708]

You know, I never felt like that. But then actual coffee didn't do anything either. I went to check how much caffeine is in coke and how much is okay for kids to have, I'm not sure how many cans would be needed for any effects or dependency of the actual caffeine beating sugar. Anyway, thanks for the heads-up on caffeinated soft drinks and kids

[@guidedexplosiveprojectileg9943]

I would buy caffine free redbull

[@SharienGaming]

funfact - sugar is pretty much an addictive substance as well

[@agentzapdos4960]

Sugar is scientifically proven to be more addictive than cocaine.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

The 6 month free prime, has made something click in my brain I'll often see some younger people buying such weird things on Amazon, like chicken and it's not because it's cheaper. It's because they have been conditioned to be used to buying it from amazon. Just adding things to a cart, that costs 1/3rd more than in store, because it will arrive the next day (in reality in 2 - 3 days) is seen as more convient than going to a shop down the road and getting it immediately.

[@JohnDoeWasntTaken]

As a young person it's weird and annoying to me how often my generation patronizes Amazon and thinks of them as the default store to buy anything. It might have been fine years ago, but now it's just AliBaba under a different name that ships from within the US. Littered with low quality products, fake products, and scams.

[@lissie3669]

Low scale agoraphobia fr

[@LegoDork]

Who the fuck buys chicken from Amazon? Amazon sells chicken? We're doomed.

[@JH-pt6ih]

@@JohnDoeWasntTaken But it wasn't fine years ago - Amazon operated at a loss and drove other stores that couldn't out of business - because they had to pay for rent and overhead and employees and couldn't depend on venture capital firms gambling on investing in them and allowing them to operate at a loss for so long. And it has only gotten worse - Amazon took the Walmart model to the internet.

[@5uper5kill3rz]

Not sure where you live but, in the UK, next day prime items that I buy on amazon Always come the day next without fail. This is ultimately what is killing the high street. Waiting a few hours to get the product straight to your door is simply more convenient and when you factor in the cost of petrol, parking etc then it will not be more expensive. Also, often items on amazon are actually cheaper than in-store, particularly when it comes to video games etc, there's been a few times where I’ve been about to buy something in person but after checking amazon last minute…I find it is cheaper on there and given the state of personal finances & the economy right now it makes no sense not to use amazon, although it is sad to see the decline of the high street.

[@ichmowgli]

Hi mate! Big thanks for such a good video!

[@breadcrumbtv]

Proper quality content brother, subscribed : )

[@RybatQ]

Tom-o-nomics: why I am addicted to this channel.

[@Tom_Nicholas]

Really glad you've enjoyed some of my stuff!

[@user-vw4xp5nt9f]

tom-o-nicholas

[@may14855]

A good example of a recent attempt at the razor and blade scheme is unity when they last year tried to increase the prices because they hold basically a monopoly on gaming engines. Somehow it didn't work out, but its a reminder that things can change to the worse rapidly in this economy.

[@catStone92]

unity never came close to having a monopoly, it was just the most popular engine by far for certain developers and types of games.

[@Bomberman66Hell]

Because Unity never had a monopoly, they were close but they flew too close to the sun and their wings melted away.

[@libbybaker86]

Glad you got it sorted. I have shared to my healthcare colleague. A really interesting vidoe