Disney Abandoned America for the 1%
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Summary
In this episode, I speak with my friend Malcolm about how Disney has become a luxury good, and why it s no longer affordable to visit Disneyland or other theme parks in the United States. We talk about how expensive it is to visit Disney parks these days, and how it s getting out of hand with ticket prices.
Transcript
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Hello Malcolm! I'm so excited to be speaking with you today because you
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wanted to explore how Disney has become a luxury good and at first it was like
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I don't know. Not even a luxury good, a luxury brand.
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Going through Disney these days it's like you go
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and and and you pay for something you're like can I have
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that like going to Disneyland or Disney bag or something.
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Look. But in reality if I were to go to Disneyland it would be more like this.
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Open it up! Go ahead. Open it up. Do what he says. Hurry.
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What is this? What is this? Where's all the money?
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No like basically that's it and and honestly the more I dove into this issue to prepare for this
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episode the more I realized this this is actually really deep and important issue to discuss. It
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goes way beyond all the like butthurt videos that are out there which I love watching anyway. I watch
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a ton of Disney reviews I I subscribe to channels that only review menus from premium Disney restaurants
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like I I'm into this I love it but it's actually doing the research myself and doing this episode I
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now have a completely different view and philosophy around purchasing any non commodified product or
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service. Oh explain. My world view has changed so we're going to get into it through the lens
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of Disney no longer being affordable and we really have to talk about it so I just want to for those
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who are not familiar with the Disney brand and how much it has increased in cost Disney park entrance
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fees now rise about twice as fast as the cost of an average American's basket of goods and services
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and faster than major competitors ticket prices too so it's not just like you know everyone's getting
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out of hand when it comes to theme parks. Disney's also charging customers for a myriad of add-ons that
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is just completely insane and if you want to watch like because I love videos on these I really love
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Jake of bright sun films check out his bright sun travel channel too he has one video where he just
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goes with his girlfriend to Disneyland for one day and sort of just gives you a really good day in the
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life of like how much you spend being a totally non-vip reasonable budget conscious Disney attendee
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at one point though he wants to go on a new ride there the new Tron ride he pays just $42 for
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himself and his girlfriend to be able to get on the ride because there was no in the park he's already
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in the park but just to just to get on that one ride because otherwise they never would have gotten
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to go on it that day because you have to like it's a whole thing in that one day he dropped
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$886 oh my god for not not doing anything particularly no he didn't buy any snacks he
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didn't do anything special he didn't get add-ons aside from that one desperate attempt to get on
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a ride and it's it's insane it's also I should I should say like it is insane to the point where
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people are actively damaging themselves to participate in Disney experiences surveys in 2024 to 2025 so like
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now show that around 24 percent of all U.S. Disney park visitors have gone into debt to pay for their
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Disney trip with the rate soaring to 45 percent among parent with parents of children under 18
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who are the least you know they shouldn't be getting to debt rather than like saving for college or
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something not not that college makes sense these days exactly but saving to set their kids up they're
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like yeah let's go into debt for Disney for Disney the and it's not a little bit the average debt for these
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trips is around two thousand dollars per family and most indebted guests took their Disney debt on
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within the past five years it's it is I just I can't believe it it's not that good we went to
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Disney not that long ago compared to like when I was a kid and I remember just being like this is not
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it doesn't have that much magic anymore yeah especially if you contrast it with other parts
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like Universal Studios yeah which are like freaking amazing yeah just like technology how good
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Universal Studios was in comparison to Disney Disney felt like a discount attraction it really
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reminds me of like Costco's versus BJ's like everybody thinks of Costco is like the higher-end brand
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but if you've ever been in a Costco's and a BJ's Costco's feels very like I and I do not mean to say
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this in like a negative way but growing up in Texas you could go to various grocery stores
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and you could tell if the primary users of the grocery store were Latin American immigrants or
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they were supposed to be Texas born individuals and Costco feels like a store that is set up
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for Latin American immigrants typically like it's it's it's you know with BJ's like it's everything's like
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very actually anyone who knows if you're a Latin American and you've gone to a Latin American grocery
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store you know exactly what I'm talking about they feel they have a very different structure in
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terms of the layout and in terms of the way they display products but anyway interesting BJ's does
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feel very white I'll say that but but here is why this really actually matters beyond just
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Disney is not actually unique it's it is it is we'll say like a sort of hyperbolic example but it's
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representative of any non-commoditized product in a market and discourse around Disney's
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unaffordability yields a key insight because non-commodity products are basically in this
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modern age endlessly exploitative there is no way that they're going to be affordable or sustainable
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in other words you're either going to get a crappy experience like we did at Disney or you're going to
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spend so much money that like you're in debt or or all your money spent on it and you're still not
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going to be satiated and explain what you mean by a non-commodity experience so I'm referring to
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and so there there are sort of two broad different types of business models there there are commodities
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like groceries like gasoline where businesses are making money by being more efficient and trying to get
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as much market share as possible and then there are products that are more like luxuries or or
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discretionary purchases where really as a business you are making money by differentiating yourself and
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building brand loyalty and the only way that you're really going to make money is by getting
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focusing it doubling down on your top typically there's just the parade of principle at play your
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top 20 percent of customers are going to make up the majority of your earnings and because of that
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principle basically and businesses I think in the past even in our childhoods and you can see this
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with Disney they didn't I guess want to admit this they were like oh we welcome all we want to get all
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the customers let's give everyone a great experience and now businesses are getting a lot more ruthless
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about like no we're gonna fire we're gonna fire these customers either by like literally excluding
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them or by just giving them a really shoddy experience and we are going to completely focus
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in well okay so consider Disney and why they would do this if people are confused by this if you go to
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Disney and I've been on like non big days you are in giant lines like let's say like two hour lines for
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like every ride right from a Disney perspective that means you if you're not one of the highest paying
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customers are just making the highest paying customers wait longer for a ride right like
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yeah you're in their way you're crowding the park you're frugal they don't want you there
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yeah if you're showing up with bottled water and with snacks packed and you're not paying for any extras
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and and then on the other hand there's this family that buys the merch goes to the premium restaurants
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goes to a dessert party gets the the genie passes stays at the most expensive branded hotel on a suite
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does a six-day package is a Disney vacation package timeshare member like all these things like
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obviously they want that that other family to get everything you know they're gonna get all the
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attention but this is this is a general market principle now that has been widely adopted at and
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accepted and what this means functionally whether you have kids or not is that if you try to get your
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your luxury that is to say like your hedonic pleasure any non-commoditized products so like not
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groceries maybe not well premium groceries are different we have everyone and everything but
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like if you're getting normal stuff that's fine but anything beyond that at this point you really
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shouldn't turn to products or services that you buy outside your community or household for your
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happiness because you cannot get it there again it will either cost it will cost everything or it will
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be the belief that you're happy that is what Disney fundamentally sells people these days yeah but
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they're not you're not getting happy you go there and you're like well great now i'm in debt it wasn't
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that good of a day i couldn't even get into anything because the lines were too long and i'm stressed by
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the money i did spend well i mean people allow themselves to be sort of brainwashed by it and into
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believing that they're doing something good and that they are happy because otherwise they need to deal
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with the cognitive dissonance of all the money that they wasted yeah i think you know the other dynamic
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too is that this is i think and i'll show you in the numbers this is a relatively new thing that is
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happening with discretionary goods with non-commoditized goods so we i think a lot of us
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having most of most of the people watching this are like older teens or adults had some experience
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with more sustainably priced discretionary goods and kind of could for a while get by with getting
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luxuries and being satisfied from them and getting a premium experience in a slightly more affordable
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format this was also cheesed by that experience of like the post dot com debt or sorry tech boom
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where like vcs were just pumping money into startups that sold luxuries which in turn were only trying
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to get market share by making their their products and services super underpriced so this was back when
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you could get like an uber and an uber meant like a luxury black car and it was actually affordable you
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know but like that was just because of a venture capitalist was subsidizing it no one could afford that
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so i think a lot of us have grown up thinking that we could do this and now they're still doing it
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like they're putting money into the machine and nothing's coming out and they're not realizing this
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but this this is your wake-up call so first let's just talk about how like out of control things have
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gotten and how quickly and we're going to look at the price hikes okay let's look at the price hikes
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so park entrance in disneyland 1955 do you want to do you want to guess what it was
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i'm gonna guess 50 bucks cost adjusted oh who's 11 to 24 dollars 24 dollars that's that's cost
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adjusted to modern to 2024 although i so before before 1981 in disney parks you had to make such
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separate purchases for rides and then the all-inclusive ticket model began in 1981 so if we
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just look at then 1981 still it was 31 dollars all-inclusive to get in the park then in 1990
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it was 72 dollars like around 72 dollars in 2084 into 2010 107 hmm in 2015 131 in 2024 104 to 206
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and keep in mind when you're when you're when you're looking at these earlier dates and you're like but
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my parents could afford to go to disney with me when i was a kid so i want to do that for my kids
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because they could because they could they literally could it was a different experience
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back then yeah and frankly i think it was a better experience rise wide and i loved it yeah it was
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fantastic oh you know for the same cause i mean i'm sure we could just go to hershey park or something
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so i will point out actually other usa parks when adjusted for inflation the entrance fee increases in
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us-based disney parks have significantly outpaced both the national inflation rate and the price
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hikes at rival parks such as like universal studios and six flags but all major parks have seen double
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digit increases in the past decade they are outpacing inflation and and and i can i can send you a
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series of tables i want to talk about disney like branded goods as well oh we're gonna get to that
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we're gonna get to that but i also first want to point out just how out of whack things are um because
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this is actually a it's clearly a disney strategy and in some other countries i think this pareto
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principle high roller exploitation strategy hasn't necessarily rolled out because there's this very
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interesting case study of tokyo disney which is not owned by disney it was it's like licensed so while in
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2025 the adjusted inflation adjusted price of well we don't have to inflation adjust for this of disney
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in the usa 189 around to get into like a disney park tokyo disneyland you want to guess tokyo
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disneyland i don't know what it's it's it's it's 75 to get really that was that was the price to get in
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in approximately 1990 so in 1990 the inflation adjusted dollar price to get into a park was 72
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in the united states so basically if you want the 90s park experience still you can literally
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get it at tokyo disney same goes for the food and again because i'm obsessively i love watching
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park reviews i've seen so many influencers like literally do all the numbers fly out to tokyo and
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they're like literally flying to tokyo and going to tokyo disney costs me less than going to disneyland
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yeah which honestly like i so want to do that's only come on let's get some kind of pro natalist
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event in japan before they go tokyo disney i know but like and also like or tokyo disney shuts down
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because they're just like well there's no kids in japan yeah i know i mean kids don't go to disney
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anymore right you know well i mean yeah but at least hopefully the disney adults prop it up right
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but but it is really actually the hotels and everything they're gorgeous it's super kid
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friendly again the food is important and we're going to be talking about disney adults in this
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episode we're going to get to that i mean sort of yeah i mean they're they're part of this because
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they're the they're the high rollers and that's why we're you know i mean i find disney adults
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fascinating because they actively brand and i think it's why disney has moved in this direction
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as a luxury brand they wear their disney outfits and and branding so that you know how
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much money they spent that is part of the point of it like wearing a prada bag or something like
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that oh yeah um but they're spending it to enforce a perception of them as infantilized this is a brand
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they want other people to see and think about them as infantilized individuals connected to
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some earlier idea of what a good childhood was that they don't want to have left and i think that
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that's what the brand fundamentally represents for the groups that engage with it and well yeah i mean
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i also see sort of disney adulting is it's it's very dank it's it's very refusing to grow up and
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just choosing to be a kid forever instead of taking responsibility and you know maybe i don't know about
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that exactly when i imagine my classic disney brand person i mean there's sort of two categories of
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them there's the borderline personality kind of obese woman who's just obsessed with disney which is one
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category you know and then the other category is the beleaguered mormon mom who used to wear like
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minion shirts or something yeah and i don't think that that second category is exactly dink like they're more
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just never really wanted to identify as an adult yeah no i can see that yeah but i i also i just
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because this is so fun i want to highlight park out-ons because this is this is what caused for
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example jake of bright sun travels bright sun films to pay 42 dollars just to get on a freaking ride so
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i don't know if you've been to a disney park when they introduced fast passes this was like between
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1999 and 2020 do you remember these the fast passes yeah so fast pass was this like it was i think it
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was integrated with your park entrance card or something that allowed you to basically like sign
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up for time slots at a ride no i remember i remember because of cartman's thing where he's like
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now you have to stand in lines to stand in lines the lines everywhere the lines the lines the lines
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the lines the lines so then there's lines for fast pass you stand in line to get a ticket to stand in
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line later then there's lines for the bathrooms lines for the drinks lines for cantagoras and rare
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i mean that's what it that's what it eventually became but the original concept of the fast pass was
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actually really awesome because it was designed from from the the standpoint of how can we get people
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to not stand in lines like if they make an appointment they drop that because they realized
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they can make money off of that so the the first thing was just like basically you sign up for a
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time slot you know how like when you you're on hold with a support and they're like do you want to hold
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or do you want us to call you back and that is exactly what fast passes were and it just made
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things work more efficiently it made it look less crowded it was great and they were like wait why
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aren't we charging people for this and so in in 2017 they introduced the max pass dl which in 2025 was
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basically 13 so like not too bad then it went up to 18 and then they they introduced the genie system
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or genie plus system which then started around 18 and then in 2022 it was it was 24 and then in 2023
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it was 30 and then in 2024 it was 32 and then it went in 2025 it was it was 35 and i mean it makes
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sense to buy one of these per person but it's also just like so insulting if you're coming with a family
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and you have all these kids and you're paying 35 and i think there's dynamic pricing too so if the park's
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extra crowded you're paying more per person that really adds up because this doesn't include the food
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and the hotel and the transportation it's just another insult to injury and then it's it's also
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not just to your point disney park stuff oh oh though i did send you disney food prices just so you
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could see because the park meals are insane so in 2014 i'm just going to give you some like very classic
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disney food comparisons okay but you can also look at the food menus that i sent to you just to see
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like what they are now oh my god sorry i'm looking at one of these it is literally a frozen oh okay
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yeah so back i guess this is an older one a frozen banana is 625 oh my god popcorn is 13 dollars yeah
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i mean in a commemorative plastic bucket though so i mean this is why this is literally why we bought
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a cotton candy machine because we cannot bear to buy candy at venues like lager is ten dollars
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i mean you need to be sloshed to deal with that kind of stress though so in 2014 there's a there's
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there's this place called santa bread service that their inflation adjusted 2025 price was was
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about 13 now or as of 2024 it's 22 how about corn dog nuggets they were 6.68 in 2014 um now they're 11
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dollars almost twice as much dole whip classic disney treat yeah uh in 2014 five dollars and 36 now it's
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six dollars and 43 a mickey pretzel used to be in 2024 six dollars and 15 cents i mean it's still insane
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to pay six dollars and 15 cents for a freaking soft pretzel now it's eight dollars and 68 cents 2019
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an adult table dinner at be our guest was 68 20 now it is 72 dollars and i mean people are going with
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their kids you know their kids are like not eating any they're asking for like chicken nuggets they're
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eating two of them they're not and that's the thing you're not even eating them yeah yeah but you
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i mean to get the table you have to pay for everyone you can't just be like our kids aren't eating
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which is what we always do when i do restaurants i'm yeah you don't like eating at restaurants i'm
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like i'll have the soup and they're like what do you mean you'll have the soup and i'm like oh my god
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yeah no even when you and i just go to restaurants like i won't eat and you'll order like an appetizer
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and they get so mad and then when we go with our kids maybe both you and i will have an appetizer
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and their kids will pick off of our plates and they're like but what about the children and we're
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like ah like they don't eat this anyway i'm not i'm not doing this but yeah the price increases have
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been insane it's it's been really hard for people to go in and like the problem is even if you're
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responsible even if you bring snacks your kids like they want the freaking mickey waffle they want the
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mickey pretzel they want the mickey ice cream like they are going to be so mad at you i mean like we
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struggle to take our kids to grocery stores because as much as we're like no only for special occasions
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well they always want a toy the whole thing just looks like such a chore so it's so stressful
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so then they have the fast pass disney plus though so like we're just talking like
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what if you just want to be a disney fan from afar right you're like okay i'm gonna go
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like we're not gonna leave our house i i love disney as a kid so let's just get disney plus
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but it's gone up from 2019 it was 8 67 inflation adjusted now it's 18.99 what per month yeah that's
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why we don't get disney plus anymore yeah dude and just to go more into the disney debt that people go
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into for disney vacations because this is just so sobering to me and this is again this is why like
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even if you're like okay well this is my my one thing this is where i'm going to get all of my
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hedonic pleasure no it's you're only going to end up hurting yourself 24 of disney park attendees
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have taken on debt for their trip that's up from 18 in 2022 wow so that i think that really goes to
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show that even in just three years it's become so financially unsustainable that that many more
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people are like well i guess like credit card debt 45 of parents of children under 18 have gone
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into debt for a disney trip that's up from 30 in 2022 the average disney related debt for parents
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of young children is nine one thousand nine hundred nine hundred and eighty three per trip and debt
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most commonly covers concessions and and transportation and accommodations so they're just they're going
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into debt to buy pretzels to buy an overpriced pretzel an eight dollar pretzel 83 of indebted parents
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incurred their disney debt within the past five years gen z that's like 39 and millennials 36
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are likeliest to take on disney debt while only 70 or sorry while only seven percent of boomers do
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so basically almost like getting getting close to what well over a third of gen z and millennials can't
00:23:03.600
do disney without getting into debt so if you see a young person at disney
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one out of three of them is going into debt to be there like just look to your left look to your
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right one of the three of you is still in debt or more debt and while most families can pay off
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their disney related debt within six months nearly sixty percent report sixty percent don't pay it off
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sorry nearly sixty percent report no regrets and that's where we get to the disney delusion and this is
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this is where we get to this this this this delusion that i want this episode to be a wake-up call
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and this whole thing has been a wake-up call for me to dispel because people are so brainwashed into
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disney fandom which we would argue is analogous to any facet of modern mainstream culture that disney
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is able to exploit them in a myriad of ways and it will never be enough like these people are going
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into debt to buy a freaking pretzel and they're happy about it they have no regrets they're like yolo disney
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this is you know we've been doing some videos about like the nihilism of like shooters and stuff
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like that and i'm like this is somehow more nihilistic than the nihilism i see in like satanic
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shooters and stuff like that like this was a good use of my time and money especially when you consider
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all the suffering and pain that's going on in the world that they could be working towards or any
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scientific progress they could be pushing forwards yeah they're like it's almost as bad as the
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everest cleaners see our everest episode or we're just like you have to be like a psychopath and when
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you walk around disney parks you're not people aren't looking thrilled and i watch a lot of disney
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footage yeah you don't see a lot of happy people at disney i'm gonna be you don't you don't see a lot
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of happy people i saw the happiest place on earth i saw honestly harry potter world way more happy oh my
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god yes because people are just so freaking impressed by everything it's yeah you're like oh this is done
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quite well you just watch it and you're like this was worth the money like do you walk around harry
00:24:59.280
potter we were legit impressed yeah yeah and you're like oh my god like this is pretty and i think you
00:25:05.920
see harry potter world for me represents the failure of disney in many ways because they had the contract
00:25:11.520
to do that and jk rowling uh over their plans and she goes this is just a few themed rides this is not
00:25:19.440
what people want yeah they want an immersive world yeah disney was like nobody does that jk rowling
00:25:26.400
that's crazy don't forget disney tried actually succeeded in creating an immersive world or like
00:25:32.400
remember the star wars hotel they created but it sucked they made it this like you're locked into
00:25:37.360
these windowless tiny rooms and and then forced to go into these like it was just terrible and then it
00:25:42.320
shut down because it was that bad so yeah it's like it showed also like an out of touchness with
00:25:49.440
what parts of their brands work with people what parts of their brands don't work with people i mean
00:25:55.200
i've watched a lot of these star wars hotel walkthroughs or like people who did the whole thing yeah
00:26:00.640
they're fun they're like you know you you watch it and i'm just glad that i'm not running around
00:26:05.360
trying to do these stupid unfinished games that somebody desperately programmed yeah it seems like homework i
00:26:11.520
don't yeah or like talk again we've talked about this in other actors like character lunches or
00:26:16.880
character interactions in general make me so the thing is is you can just go if you want that form
00:26:22.000
of immersiveness yeah to like your local medieval fair or like fantasy oh my god yeah go to your rent
00:26:27.840
fair and rent fairs are so much more so there's like this cool thing that they do now where people
00:26:33.360
like rent out castles and like everybody goes in like period attire and like you're supposed to like
00:26:39.360
larp the whole time but you could do this if you live in the uk and the us still have like castle
00:26:43.280
like i'm like what castle are you talking about there's castle like things throughout the us that
00:26:47.040
people will use to do this and it's like a whole thing that sounds fun i still don't want to
00:26:53.360
interact with people but i mean in theory it sounds fun but yeah so you you you had mentioned disney
00:26:59.200
merchandise and people walking here are these people coming today to work with him no okay good
00:27:05.280
okay sorry our kids are sick no yeah we're good i i got all that i i get the admin i can definitely
00:27:12.240
do the admin if you do the if you're on the if you're in the splash zone i'm like behind in like
00:27:17.440
the tech booth okay shamu's getting all over you though so i just sent you a link and a screenshot from
00:27:26.240
the disney official disney merchandise store just to show you how like you know into the delusion you
00:27:31.440
know people want to go i think the classic thing that people feel really fine so simple headbands
00:27:38.960
dizzy button doonie and burka ear headband is 198 doonie and burka make this a thing yeah no but like
00:27:47.600
seriously there there are some mickey mouse ears because when you walk through the park you want to get
00:27:52.240
mickey mouse ears because everyone has them and you're like i i want to be in the spirit so people
00:27:56.960
buy these the average like a typical price for mouse ears that aren't like discounted and pathetic which
00:28:02.320
are more around like 25 a typical price is 44 but yeah the you can spend 200 way more there there are
00:28:09.920
many other ways though that disney will find ways to extract money from from people i've watched really
00:28:15.520
in-depth videos for example on the disney vacation club because i don't know if you knew but disney has a
00:28:21.520
robust timeshare model they have expanded resorts and enhanced member exclusive experiences like
00:28:27.120
these are people who like literally like it is a disney lifestyle they they own part of the disney
00:28:33.040
property and now if you've bought into the disney vacation club oh it's not like you already spent i
00:28:38.960
don't know what 200 000 some crazy amount right for your timeshare which you still have to pay probably
00:28:44.400
fees to maintain but now they're extracting additional money out of you with with dvc resale and with rentals
00:28:51.360
and with points based enhancement enhancement so like it's never enough then also in parks they're
00:28:57.200
what they call like and literally that this is a product class called enchanting extras and this
00:29:02.800
includes exclusive fireworks views and private tours and premium lounges and animal encounters and
00:29:09.120
adventure activities that require advanced reservations and in-person fees and dessert events and then
00:29:15.440
they're also the very special dining events exclusive restaurants the club lounges like there's the pirates
00:29:21.040
the caribbean tavern spaceship earth earth lounge their after hours parties there are all these things
00:29:27.440
that like if you really want the good experience if you want to feel like you're having the disney magic
00:29:33.520
it's there but only if you spend insane amounts of money and this is this is why this exploitative
00:29:40.880
behavior is both logical and also kind of inevitable in if we're talking about efficient markets like i don't
00:29:48.560
blame disney for doing this and disney's actually really transparent about their approach so basically
00:29:55.680
they they're very open about their focus on going for fewer wealthier guests disney's data shows that
00:30:02.720
the top 10 percent of us earners now account for half of all customer spending so parks focus on affluent
00:30:09.280
demographics who can pay for new premium experiences suites and costly add-ons just 10 percent of
00:30:16.960
u.s earners half of us earners half of consumer spending wow and so and this is for for everyone
00:30:23.280
right so they know this they see this as a truism as a market dynamic and they're like well i'm going
00:30:27.920
to be dumb like i'm i am failing my fiduciary responsibility if i don't cater to them if i don't
00:30:35.600
kick out the pores yeah and also i think this is really going to hurt them and i'll explain why um
00:30:41.200
okay what disney does not understand is when disney converts a a a disney person into the disney brand
00:30:49.760
and lifestyle okay uh that really has to be done before the age of i'd say 15 yeah disney does not
00:30:56.400
make disney adults disney makes disney children who become taken by their parents as young kids who
00:31:04.720
watch disney movies and stuff like that as young kids but now that they are gaining a huge chunk of the
00:31:10.160
population especially the population with lots of kids even by making disney plus so expensive too
00:31:16.480
yes like i can think that at least there's that pipeline like at least you can have like your
00:31:19.840
remote propaganda pipeline so they're making themselves irrelevant in the long term because
00:31:25.440
their portion of the population that has fond memories of disney what disney is selling you when
00:31:31.840
they sell you the disney quote-unquote magic is the magic of childhood it is trying to bring you back
00:31:37.200
to your childhood yeah and and into experiences that you thought were special during your childhood
00:31:43.520
if you don't have the disney evoked set from childhood they can't do that i don't know because
00:31:50.320
even children are pretty sensitive to the concept of luxury items and now that disney is a luxury item
00:31:57.760
i think that it will get into their mind share that way but but let me let me also just i know like
00:32:02.880
disney again also companies are not ceos right their incentive packages are not incentivized for
00:32:09.920
what happens 20 years from now and you know this you know it their incentive packages have to do with
00:32:15.360
this year so they're not going to be i mean that may be true they may be fully acknowledging that
00:32:20.720
but the company can is incapable based on the way that incentive packages are set up based on the way that
00:32:26.400
shareholders behave of of making that proactive plan and recent quarterly annual reports show that disney
00:32:34.000
parks are earning record profits with attendance still below pre-pandemic levels so they've never
00:32:39.680
recovered for the pandemic but they have record profits yes because they're squeezing so much out
00:32:45.280
of people because of their massive increases in per capita guest spending on upcharges and hotels and
00:32:49.760
foods and special services and that results means that you're just getting more from fewer you have to do less work
00:32:56.640
to take care of these people and they're also engaging in active price optimization there's
00:33:00.640
a lot of discussing a discussion online now about dynamic pricing disney's doing it too they have
00:33:05.840
dynamic date based pricing their high price increases first get the line add-ons and they have a stream of
00:33:12.400
upcharges and revenue repeatedly rises even when traffic is flat or falls and their executives are explicitly
00:33:20.880
acknowledging this strategy of maximizing revenue disney's parks are like their big cash cow yeah
00:33:27.360
when contrasted with their their television brand and everything like that disney tv there's been some
00:33:32.400
talk recently even that they've shut down basically their animation division so they're not doing
00:33:36.960
animated television stuff anymore or like disney disney tv stuff in a classical sense anymore and this this
00:33:43.680
is not great right for for disney going forward it's like they have a few active shows but i i can't
00:33:48.400
remember the context but it was basically like there isn't really a future for them given the way that
00:33:51.840
they've structured the team at this point and their shows just keep bombing over and over and over again
00:33:57.120
you know whether they're pixar disney or anything like that we've seen well this is despite the fact
00:34:00.880
that actually i i saw some graphs i didn't i didn't grab them for this interview but spending on
00:34:06.080
production through disney plus and their other like media stuff has actually gone up over time yeah
00:34:12.160
one of the reasons why we're seeing disney plus height price hikes i think it's actually less about
00:34:16.080
extracting extra money from the customer and more about the fact that they're paying more for original
00:34:19.920
new content so i i think that they are aware of the fact that good media properties are crucial
00:34:26.560
if they want to maintain you know some kind of base and not lose the middle class
00:34:32.400
because they just made like they've clearly taken a quote-unquote side in the culture wars like we
00:34:38.160
talk about the rehiring of jimmy kimmel right yeah yeah lied on air it wasn't there was a
00:34:44.800
in response to jimmy kimmel's firing yeah um which we've pointed out in the episode he had lower
00:34:50.400
ratings than most talk shows had when they were canceled he himself said he expected to not have his
00:34:55.440
contract renewed and it wasn't that he attacked trump or charlie kirk he just lied about
00:35:02.320
about an assassination attempt and then refused to apologize and they still take him back which
00:35:07.280
i think disney getting involved with the culture was a huge unforced error on their part they got
00:35:12.320
involved with the court culture wars way before that though i mean the whole all the star wars
00:35:17.520
stuff that happened well no of course but the problem is is they got involved with the side
00:35:22.000
that had a lot of disney adults and very few people who have kids and that made sense from a
00:35:28.960
selling more to this luxury brand audience but it makes the brand long-term irrelevant i do not
00:35:35.040
think that disney is going to be a particularly relevant like it may still own a lot of stuff but
00:35:40.720
particularly relative relevant from a brand perspective within our children's generation
00:35:45.920
i do i do think that they should be doing a lot more to be accessible to children because even now
00:35:53.760
actually when we see like disney licensed products like we were just in bj's the other day getting
00:35:59.600
our normal groceries or seven gallons of milk for a couple of days and we we saw these these rubber
00:36:05.440
ducks which our kids love and i was like oh my god why are these so expensive because it was a really
00:36:09.600
expensive pack and then we realized it was crazy expensive because it was like elsa duck and it looked
00:36:15.200
really poor quality too well they looked really crappy but also like if we can't like our kids actually are
00:36:20.960
not into any disney properties and it's not that we're like trying to shield them i mean ghibli is
00:36:26.400
way better obviously and other stuff but like we just we can't afford it we're not we're not going to
00:36:31.680
spend that much more for for ducks that have disney theming so our kids don't know disney characters
00:36:39.280
i mean for this one period one of our kids octavian really loved watching a little mermaid but he kept
00:36:45.040
calling her worm the worm the worm movie but the problem is is it kids today just seem to react so
00:36:50.720
much better to hideo kojima or not hideo kojima what's the one i'm thinking of studio ghibli studio
00:36:56.000
ghibli stuff then no they always have they always have it's just it's just it's just superior i don't
00:37:02.160
know what to say and that's again we need to have a japanese protein list like family trip or like
00:37:09.520
conference because then there's the ghibli park there's so many amazing resorts for kids in japan and
00:37:14.480
they're affordable but they're amazing oh anyway it drives me nuts but okay so while i agree with you
00:37:23.440
that disney is shooting itself in the foot probably because it it the way that it works is it has this
00:37:28.480
like child to adult pipeline most discretionary goods totally work like this and are going to
00:37:35.680
continue work like this and it is a sustainable model for them not for us as consumers for them
00:37:41.040
basically if you're not selling a commodity it's more logical to charge more and double down on high
00:37:45.600
rollers that are honestly spending themselves into holes and then budget conscious spenders and a
00:37:51.680
large majority of businesses especially very specifically not not people selling commoditized
00:37:56.960
products so like just like normal low priced milk like walmart gas stations electricity like that's
00:38:02.400
you know that's fine they generate most of their income from a minority of clients so if we look at like
00:38:07.920
okay gucci luxury product most of its sales come from its top 20 of customers luxury industry analysts
00:38:17.200
frequently estimate that the top 20 of customers can account to 70 to 80 of revenues and profits on
00:38:24.480
ultra high-end segments casinos classic example overwhelmingly depend on their top 20 of customers for
00:38:30.880
their profits with recent studies showing that this segment is responsible for around 90 or more
00:38:35.920
of total operator revenue especially in online casino settings the top 20 of let's just take
00:38:42.080
something you know nerdy more homegrown like magic the gathering right yeah that they're like 20 top 20
00:38:48.720
percent of magic buyers termed whales are estimated to generate 70 to 80 so this is gucci levels
00:38:55.600
of their total that is fascinating supporting this discussions among magic analysts and financial
00:39:00.240
communities indicate that brand that relies heavily on the core of highly engaged high spending
00:39:04.800
customers who purchase large quantities of cards and premium sets and exclusive product offerings like
00:39:10.720
secret layer drops and well so magic is owned by hasbro they don't you know exactly give very detailed reports
00:39:18.880
but they definitely provide evidence of rising average transaction values that have outsized revenue growth from
00:39:25.360
basically premium sets and products that are only being bought by like this super fan and this even applies
00:39:30.000
to like literally stuff that i would guess or assume to be more commoditized but they're still discretionary goods
00:39:36.800
like phone apps like just freaking mobile games analysts have found that there's like a 25 to 65 rule
00:39:44.480
in the apple app store with 25 of customers responsible for 65 of spending which is for apps
00:39:53.280
which which is is crazy and the key balance for these businesses is to reduce the risk of losing
00:39:58.880
those you know i mean like obviously when you have a more concentrated customer base of just like a few high
00:40:03.040
rollers the risk is if you lose enough of them alienate enough of them you're really really screwed you
00:40:08.400
know you don't have this diversified portfolio but as long as you're like pretty careful
00:40:12.000
you're okay and then basically this this incentivizes companies to just give a crappy
00:40:20.960
experience to budget customers because if anything they're a burden they're crowding things up they're
00:40:26.000
wasting your time when you could be spending your time better targeting and better serving the ones who
00:40:33.200
have the money and can spend the money so if you're buying non-essentials and you're not a high
00:40:37.920
roller you're just going to get an intrinsically crummy experience and this matters because
00:40:45.040
basically if you try to buy your happiness through products or services outside your community outside
00:40:51.120
your family you're just not gonna either you're gonna like blow all your money and still not be happy
00:40:58.880
or you're gonna blow your money and get a crappy experience and and this is it makes me so much happier
00:41:06.880
that we have like made kind of a financial decision to kind of stop traveling stop going on trips and
00:41:14.080
stop like we used to take our kids to like trampoline parks and museums and things like that and and we
00:41:19.440
kind of had this experience but we we didn't really get it you know like well you know this this trampoline
00:41:25.040
park is only really going to be fun if we drop a hundred dollars at the arcade and then buy the pizza
00:41:30.000
and like you know get them the vip pass so they can go on this fun part of it that's otherwise
00:41:35.360
roped off right like everything is becoming like this and the fact that i've now looked at this dynamic
00:41:41.280
is that the buffalo buffalo i'm saving this as my like for what like five bags that i bought
00:41:50.560
is my post c-section reward i have to like you know what's up yeah set some she loves saving things
00:41:58.720
for later delay gratification is like her cocaine i get through things it's how i it's my carrot i need
00:42:05.360
my carrot just walk around with that my carrot is doing what i want when i want yeah i know like
00:42:11.120
literally we got home from trader joe's and that bag immediately was opened but you unlike me had like
00:42:17.120
one bite and then rolled it up and put it in your food cabinet where it's like yeah if you knew how
00:42:23.120
much i've eaten today already you look gone yeah i yeah the baby's taking it all he is actually taking
00:42:32.560
it i swear they're going to open you up again and be like this is so much bigger than we thought
00:42:36.640
yeah okay so my guess is going to be eight pounds and two ounces so we'll see i've been trying yeah
00:42:43.920
anyway but yeah so what what i what i am thinking like what all this research has changed about the
00:42:50.720
way that i look at things so it was like i i still didn't have this i still never worth owning something
00:42:57.200
that isn't a commodity yeah exactly unless unless again it's like it's it's homegrown and and made by
00:43:05.040
people passionate about something so like these these stays that i'm wearing were made by hand by like
00:43:12.000
like nerdy women in portland you know who sold who sold it like through their private brand
00:43:19.040
it's on etsy french meadows but like they also have their own website frenchmeadows.com i don't
00:43:23.440
they're they're not a sponsor but i freaking love them and like you can get a luxury product from them
00:43:29.040
and actually so i've had like stays that i purchased and then the the boning comes through and that's
00:43:34.480
actually happened on these two but i don't want to tell them about it because i don't want to exploit them
00:43:38.240
but like they're literally like oh we'll just send you a new one when they get a little bit broken
00:43:43.600
and i just sent one back and they sent me a new one like that is where luxury is now it's in
00:43:48.960
community-based like otaku people who are passionate or within your own community or your own family
00:43:55.360
like that is where you can get it so you can still get it but trying to get a happy experience from any
00:44:02.560
large corporate brand is increasingly becoming an exercise in frustration and as much as apparently
00:44:10.160
japan hasn't figured this out with their tourism industry and i do not understand how or why
00:44:16.480
it's going to spread everywhere so even if you're you know one of our romanian listeners or one of our
00:44:21.040
german listeners and maybe this isn't happening there yet it's i mean it's only a matter of time i feel
00:44:28.000
like there's just this darwinian business thing where like the businesses that survive are going
00:44:31.760
to be the ones that do this because it works it's worked for disney again like they're still at
00:44:37.680
pre-pandemic levels in park attendance and they're fine with that and like they're they're literal like
00:44:44.320
here's a here's an article in the mirror about how like influencers are walking around disney parks in
00:44:50.240
florida and it's just empty you know there's no lines no weights like really yeah because nobody's
00:44:56.240
going anymore because only for the super race well in this specific one that they they cite in this
00:45:00.720
was on labor day weekend this guy goes to a disney park in orlando and films it and it is just a
00:45:07.680
wasteland does not care because they're still making money they don't it's really they do not care
00:45:21.120
even on days when park attendance is low they're making same amount of money pretty much
00:45:26.640
so yeah i just i'm grateful that you were like hey dig into this because i was like i don't know
00:45:34.480
i know everything there is to know about this and i'm like i watch all the disney influencers i do it's
00:45:40.640
fun i like it a lot but yeah we it's official we're quitting disney not that we ever were
00:45:51.280
that disney but i liked it there was a time in my adolescence when my eyes would well up with tears
00:45:59.200
when i heard the little jingle with the castle at the beginning of a disney movie
00:46:04.000
oh my gosh they they ruined that was the movie wish upon a star they ruined all of it yeah about how
00:46:10.560
entitlement is awesome because the bad guy in that was absolutely in the right they're like i should
00:46:15.840
never have to give up anything i want was basically the justification of that movie yeah
00:46:20.000
yeah i mean didn't disney just in canto i think i mean canto was really great i thought it was really
00:46:26.560
good they just they still are capable of it in canto is the only thing they've done recently that
00:46:31.840
in canto and frozen are the only moana frozen i haven't watched moana too like moana has one
00:46:37.680
good song there's nothing else about it that's decent it is one good song period i guess you liked
00:46:42.800
the crab song yeah i like the crab song but no i think it only has one good song it's a great song
00:46:48.720
but it is one good song for one is it is that the one uh about like grateful you're you're welcome
00:46:54.800
yeah with the is that about men for women in society it's the patriarchy song about the patriarchy
00:47:05.520
that's why it's so great it's so based i mean they didn't realize they're doing it but it was like
00:47:11.120
the barbie movie it happened even yeah but yeah i just yeah i'm curious to see what people think
00:47:18.400
about this episode when it comes out curious to that i get to be married to somebody who doesn't
00:47:23.520
want anything but commodities and like and i i love this lifestyle commodity maxing commodity maxing
00:47:29.840
but no but also like we're actually happy that's that's the crazy thing children are the luxury item in
00:47:34.960
our life children are the only luxury item that really matters they i will say i have never and
00:47:42.000
i'm not a kid person i've never felt so wealthy as i feel so abundant as when like three of our kids
00:47:50.960
are struggling to all sit in my lap as as we read a book together i'm like all they do i love them
00:47:56.640
they're like i get this section of the lap i get this section of the lap and it's it's it is a feat
00:48:01.840
because i have this this this giant belly and there's like not there's not much room to sit
00:48:08.320
and they're they're figuring it out life finds a way i find them not soon not with five kids i don't
00:48:15.360
know what's that gonna happen soon but one on the shoulders i guess so you know we need to build some
00:48:19.840
kind of contraption that allows like some kind of shelving system around us i don't know but god i love
00:48:27.360
them it yeah i i didn't know this was possible there's no way though there's no way that you can
00:48:32.000
pitch kids to someone who hasn't had them themselves that would i think give them a feeling of what it
00:48:39.520
what it's really like maybe if you grew up with a lot of siblings because you kind of partially raised
00:48:44.400
them you you would understand the camaraderie otherwise i don't know anyway i love you a lot i love you too i'm
00:48:52.480
gonna go very spectacular woman for making all of these kids and somehow still being grateful to me
00:48:57.920
even though i don't give you your disney trips we tried to cruise this last year and we're like not
00:49:02.880
again but now octavian our oldest wants to make a cruise for a hundred kids they all know they all
00:49:08.400
still want to go on a cruise which is weird they didn't enjoy it that much when we were doing it they
00:49:12.880
just they didn't concept in their memory of a cruise yeah it was there was a lot of crying there
00:49:18.400
were a lot of meltdowns we we tried to eat in the restaurant the first few nights and then we're
00:49:23.760
like this just isn't worth it so we ended up i had a big wagon to carry them around the ship safely
00:49:30.240
and i would just we would go up to the restaurant order the food and then i would get like takeout
00:49:36.400
plates and fill the wagon with them and we would just eat in our room this tiny little room and it was
00:49:42.000
cozy it was nice but like you know i mean i'm glad that we didn't pay for it i'm glad it was 100 on
00:49:50.400
points because i don't know we wouldn't have ever paid for something like that anyway but yeah anyway
00:50:00.880
and remember with toasty being sick i don't want you picking him up or anything i got him if he can
00:50:06.240
eat in bed in any way you let me know oh i'll just bring him some snack packs with oranges and pears
00:50:13.280
and apples and if he eats eats i think that's a good way to do it i don't wanna we can handle his
00:50:19.920
bed and i will clean out his bed you know oh of all the food that he throws into it yes you don't have
00:50:27.040
to worry he thinks he's so clever if he hides then i love the one about cheating where you you would have
00:50:34.800
him you say you know eat your cheese stick and i will give you your ipad and then one day you're
00:50:41.680
cleaning out his bed and you find all these like rotting cheese sticks stuff somewhere and you show
00:50:46.000
it to toasty and he goes well mom kids cheat sometimes like boys get their ipads
00:50:55.520
by the way we don't give our kids actual ipads and we're not rolling in money oh good heavens no no no
00:51:01.040
cheap tablets but yeah but i mean the term ipads has been commodified kind of apropos actually for
00:51:09.680
this this is gonna lose their patent hopefully you know if everything's an ipad they have so much money
00:51:16.160
in their war chest they can just make up you know but i feel like i devices are kind of falling apart
00:51:22.960
anyway but i am really excited about apple i haven't i haven't seen it around that much their their play
00:51:30.240
is going to be the smart house and i think that they can do that really well a lot of people get
00:51:36.560
locked into apple because they they like the integration they like that their their smartwatch
00:51:43.680
and their phone and their laptop and their tv are also so smoothly together and it can be really hard
00:51:52.000
to get out of that it's it's an addictive cycle so i think they're leaning into that and it makes sense to
00:51:58.880
only lean into those power users anyway which is again a big theme of this this podcast actually
00:52:05.760
i'm excited to get into it so i guess i'll just and tonight i'm doing just faux and seaweed in the
00:52:12.960
faux and then some noodles in the faux yes but with pot stickers or no nothing the point of this stuff is
00:52:22.320
just nothing else just the faux okay all right so no no proteins you're trying to avoid i explained to
00:52:28.480
you i know broth has lots of it's but it's full broth bone broth yes it is it is beef or bone broth and
00:52:37.120
it's you pointed out it has about as much protein in it as a protein bar
00:52:41.120
if you've like three or two cups which is what a what a bowl of it is i guess yeah i gave you pretty
00:52:51.200
sizable bowls okay okay no so on so on so on so on how would i get married to you i don't know man
00:53:01.600
i i definitely won this one out i i'm the winner here the better end of the lollipop but anyway let's
00:53:11.360
see i don't know the better end of the lollipop yeah sure anyway honestly i'm like toasty i hate candy
00:53:17.920
so much so i would actually prefer to eat the stick than the the end and that's why you think
00:53:22.000
you got the better end no but that's the brilliant thing is actually both of us did get
00:53:27.200
the better end of the lollipop because we each desperately need like my shortcomings are so
00:53:34.480
shored up by your strengths yeah my shortcomings are that i'm lazy and malcolm you were the least
00:53:41.520
self-indulgent who got up at 2 a.m this morning and was not only vibe coding and prepping another
00:53:46.880
podcast episode but taking care of our infant and our our sick four-year-old i didn't want them to wake
00:53:52.960
you up because you're pregnant that's not like being diligent or anything i'm sorry no you don't
00:53:57.920
get to no you're not lazy you're and i had to get stuff done this morning i'm i'm getting a lot done
00:54:02.480
with rfab yeah it's gonna be so advanced i'm so excited it's awesome like twice the website of
00:54:09.680
what's up right now which is which is working and decent and do let us know rfab.ai it's like an ai
00:54:15.840
adventure interaction system if you if you give any feedback it is hugely appreciated at this stage yeah
00:54:22.240
and huge thanks to everyone who has given feedback so far the free token claims that are on the site
00:54:27.040
every day i don't know if users have realized we give pretty generous daily free token amounts
00:54:31.920
but yeah that is nice considering what people have to shell out these days so
00:54:35.120
if you're into this stuff good offer if you guys do this you're gonna get hurt you know that right