And this is how we get Amazon as the only source of ice cream, and no other social pleasantries to make it cost effective or viable. Everyone here is just virtue signaling, the reality is shit would collapse or at least consolidate to total garbage without low wage jobs. The only solution is UBI, and that can work in societies with extreme logistical excess who also have a culture that wants to help the less fortunate. That’s surely not the US.

Lots of things are nice to have’s, almost everything actually. Door greeter, ice cream server, shoe shiner, small gyms, and probably a million more. There are so many small things that by themselves, cannot generate even 2 or 3 employees worth of revenue, which is like at least 250,000 a year. Lots of jobs have to be part time or side hustles, and when you allow that, some people will take those jobs as their primary full time job even though it is not a livable wage. Sometimes because that’s what’s available, and sometimes because that’s all they can do. If you open that door then someone will walk through it, and if you close that door, I bet a shit ton of things we all enjoy would disappear. For better or worse, without UBI, there will be jobs that don’t and cannot pay a living wage, that will exist, that people would like to exist, and that people will do. Any rules or sentiment surrounding that must take all that into account.

Are there not worthwhile services or items that someone may want to or have to do that don’t profit 50k/yr per person? Should all of those things just go away or be banned?

Dumb. First description is just readily apparent concise data, then you get a history and more nuanced detail. It’s all relevant, but there’s only so much detail you can present or gather at first glance or to present for hand off before a history is done to find out their zip code and penchant for eating paint chips.

Not retaliating is how we got here. Either the next wave causes a red holocaust or you’ll be ratcheted back the other way again.