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Why Real Life Is Now a Luxury Item (And How to Build a Business Around It)
Digital is the norm, analog is the luxury
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Yesterday, I was listening to Raging Moderates. Jessica Tarlov, one of the hosts, made a comment that as she is looking for schools for her kids, she noticed that one of the benefits the schools were selling was a “tech free environment.”
This is a stark contrast from a few years ago, when one of the main selling points of good schools was that “every kid gets an iPad.”
I thought about this a lot last night, and I realized that real life is now a higher income luxury, while screen time has become a lower income crutch.
Today, we will talk about the second order effects of this digital divide, while also diving into some business opportunities to take advantage of.
LFG. 🔥
Understanding The Inverse Premium: Screens Are Now The Inferior Good
In economics, an inferior good is something people consume more of as they have less money (like fast food or public transit). Today, digital screen time has officially become an inferior good, while human interaction is the luxury alternative.
As Common Sense Media recently highlighted in a study on this digital divide, screens are appearing more in the lives of the poor and disappearing from the lives of the rich.
The richer you are, the more money you spend to be off screen. Rich people are now buying screen free time, or analog time.
The reason for this divide is straightforward. Lower income parents often cannot afford the massive amount of time, effort, or resources required to live a completely analog life.
Parents can’t take afternoons off, so YouTube becomes a babysitter.
There are more single parent households managing tight schedules.
There is less free time in the afternoon for parks and extracurricular activities.
When you don’t have the capital to buy your way out of the digital ecosystem, the algorithmic screen becomes the default supervisor.
The High End Analog Opportunity
Because of this exhaustion with the digital world, I foresee “analog” becoming a very hot topic in the near future. High income families are actively seeking screen free activities for their kids, but also for themselves. The steady increase in search volume for the keyword “analog” is a key indicator that this trend is going mainstream.
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Rich people will continue to pay a premium to seclude themselves away from screens. For entrepreneurs, this shift opens up some massive market opportunities.
Spiritual Events: My wife is a breathwork instructor and she is selling out every event she hosts. We are already working towards hosting 4 day and 7 day long retreats because people are starving for deep, in person experiences.
Micro Hospitality: Now would be a great time to start buying small cabins and campers located about 2 hours outside of major metropolitan areas. The demand for weekend digital detox retreats is skyrocketing.
Travel And Leisure: Having time to relax, completely disconnected from your phone, is becoming the ultimate status symbol. Because of this, owning Airbnb properties, running Airbnb consulting agencies, and even starting travel blogs are going to crush.
Analog Productivity And Book Clubs: I guarantee you’ll start seeing a wave of membership products focused on productivity journaling with fancy notebooks, fountain pens, and mail ordered reading materials such as physical magazines or newspapers.
Analog is back, but weirdly enough, it is returning as a high income commodity. This means the markup on analog products and experiences is going to go way up. I’m not saying it’s fair, I’m just saying this is the reality of the market.
Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is
I’ve been thinking about this concept for months, observing through my own experiences how much people are starving for real world connection.
Darrell and I are already betting on this trend. We purchased an events business where we will host a yearly, in person conference for content entrepreneurs.
On top of that, Jules and I are looking into buying an Airbnb property in Mexico so that we have a permanent homebase to host these physical retreats. There is a massive frontier ahead for anyone who can successfully sell analog as a brand or as an industry.
To be honest, I’m still wrapping my mind around the full weight of this conclusion. It is wild to think about how our lives have reached a point where digital is the baseline norm, and simply touching grass has become a luxury item. But here we are.
I will keep my eye on this trend, and I will continue to report on it as I learn more.
Love you guys. Talk to you tomorrow.
Tim
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