Online spending on Black Friday decreased for the first time

I'm pretty sure we are headed for a recession. People are starting to realize anxiety driven consumption is not a good way to run an economy. Most people in the developed world live in material excess so buying more "stuff" is not going to make them any happier, even the folks that are homeless are kings when compared to the people in Madagascar.

So, there was a time when the percentage of book sales done online was going higher every year, and so was the percentage of book sales which were e-books. Then, about a decade ago, the rise stopped, well short of 50%. e-books are at about 20% and actually slightly declining last I looked.

The decline in vinyl record sales also comes to mind. It actually ended in 2006, and vinyl record sales in 2020 were the highest in decades:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_revival#In_the_United_St...

Just because a trend is going upwards, doesn't mean it will keep going that way. Sometimes, as with for example the displacement of steam power by electricity, it does go pretty nearly to completion, but plenty of other times it does not.

I guess it's too much to hope for a general reevaluation of our consumerism. It would be so nice for people to accept that their value is not defined by the things that they own, that the "status" the gain by buying cool stuff and fancy gadgets, cloths, furniture and useless tingle-tangle is not true social recognition but only disguised, misplaced envy. They could maybe come to understand the value of and start to participate in the communities they live in, strengthen the bonds in their neighborhood and discover friendship and companionship therein, discarding the burden of loneliness and reconnect with the people that surround them.

Or it could just be a short lull in our drive towards the cliff of extinction, one last calm before the final end-party of boundless excesses and intoxication.

It's probably the latter.

There is some potentially interesting overlap with the article posted earlier about the Chinese Lying Flat movement.

People on both sides of the pond are dropping jobs that provide diminishing returns, and that makes them re-evaluate their yearly iPhone (or whatever expensive commodity item) purchases.

Last year's lockdown taught a good lot of us how to live with things we already have. The shipping and transport supply chain problems are just rubbing salt into the wounds. As is the rapid increase in house (renting or buying) and food costs.

This isn't unrelated to the number of landmark restaurants closing down everywhere, either. They can't run without jacking up the prices, and customers don't want to pay that amount for what their offering. It's sad when it costs $50 per person for lunch at a wing pub.

I have been ripped off and read of others ripped off too often to buy online except from gold plated suppliers - so I am wary. I think we have witnessed the ending of the gouge....

Where is Adobe of all companies getting this data?