In 2002, Maine became the first state to implement a statewide laptop program to some grade levels. Then-governor Angus King saw the program as a way to put the internet at the fingertips of more children, who would be able to immerse themselves in information.
By that fall, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative had distributed 17,000 Apple laptops to seventh graders across 243 middle schools. By 2016, those numbers had multiplied to 66,000 laptops and tablets distributed to Maine students.
King’s initial efforts have been mirrored across the country. In 2024, the U.S. spent more than $30 billion putting laptops and tablets in schools. But more than a quarter-century and numerous evolving models of technology later, psychologists and learning experts see a different outcome than the one King intended. Rather than empowering the generation with access to more knowledge, the technology had the opposite effect.
Do you often interact with young people?
For there to be no disposable income these corporations are somehow making money hand over fist at every level of commerce.
I mean, I have a toddler, just for starters. Also, a bunch of nieces and nephews and friends with kids of various ages. Then I do some of the professional onboarding for interns and college new hires at my company.
So, Idk, for some definition of “young people”, yes.
The big winners of the post-COVID economy have been B2B companies - enterprise level software firms, data center firms, government contractors, and corporate supply chain companies. Your grocery store chains and big box retailers have been comparatively flat. Car companies have underperformed. Even real estate has been anemic, at least by comparison.
To call this a consumer economy, you really have to point to the consumer end of the equation and show some kind of growth. Inflation might be rising, but retail consumption certainly hasn’t.
I’m unsure of what you’re arguing here. Walmart continues to grow, Doordash has healthy growth, McDonald’s is still growing despite price increases, subscriptions are growing, micro transactions, cbd companies… I can literally keep going. The need to scroll and consume has hit gen Z hard and despite no “disposable income” they’re somehow pushing profits up along with any other struggling person. These minor comforts are big business.
Retail consumption isn’t growing? Buddy…
These are a handful of exceptions to a sweeping 15 year trend.
The following retailers in the United States and Canada have all either closed or announced plans to close large numbers of retail locations, since 2010, deemed a “retail apocalypse” by media, accelerated by both the increase in online shopping and by the COVID-19 pandemic.
So brick and mortar consumer retail is being killed off by online consumer retail…and you are interpreting this as all consumer retail is failing? Are you just not arguing in good faith, or are you that donkey brained?
Online shopping is retail but semantics… I guess the businesses that aren’t on your list are showing profits made by ghosts then.
Amazon’s data center revenue — primarily from its Amazon Web Services (AWS) business — has grown faster than its retail sales in recent years, reflecting a strategic shift toward high-margin cloud infrastructure.
Some of this is governmental. But a big chunk is functionally a circular network of business spending. Microsoft pays Amazon a dollar. Amazon pays NVIDIA a dollar. NVIDIA pays Microsoft a dollar. Ad Infinium.
And yet their retail sales are still growing year over year at nearly 10%.
Except for at the retail venues that failed, of course.
They like to confidently make a lot of bold claims that are very easy to refute by looking at a simple chart.
Yes it has. Where are you pulling this information from? The only times in the last 30 years where real retail consumption hasn’t raised is after 08 and during COVID.
Virtually flat for five straight years.
Only because that short of a period does not account for the giant spike we had due to post-pandemic spending. If you took out the period of time during and directly after the pandemic the growth curve would look completely normal.
Trying to explain to a corpse that, on average, it’s still got a heartbeat.
As a relatively younger guy (26) I do suspect that a lot of that comes from whales and whatnot IE the richer subsect. At least amongst my friends we have all started to approach old man thinks 20 bucks is a lot of money levels of stingy.
What do you spend your money on? I hear this kind of thing from lots of kids and then discover that they’ve normalized spending on things like door dash and subscription services as being essential.