[moosebear]

As a godforsaken millennial in the big American city, I do see us spending more on experiences, food, memberships, digital content, locations — things that you can’t touch — than objects. This has implications for the overall productivity of society, maybe? We produce less stuff that goes unused in attics and garages. What we do produce, we’re more likely to consume immediately or scale trivially. So less work on stuff no one will ever use. Maybe. Theory.

It’s purely anecdotal, yes. I think research papers and brand acquisition patterns can substantiate the claims we spend more on fancy food.

It could be our tastes which have been informed by analog and minimalist culture movements which I first noticed in the mid-2000s.

It could also be because we don’t have much disposable income and since home ownership is so hard where the jobs are (big cities) those with money still have nowhere to put stuff.

[ghaff]

>since home ownership is so hard

I don't know the numbers but I doubt that home ownership has ever been all that common among twenty-somethings. And I fully expect that many current twenty-somethings will end up moving out of the city to get more space once they have families. That said, the interest in living in/near the urban cores of certain large cities is a relatively recent phenomenon. When I entered the tech industry in the mid-eighties, almost no one in my local cohort lived in the city (Boston/Cambridge) which indeed was still losing population and tech jobs to suburban/exurban areas.

Although Boston/Cambridge have long been quite good for food, culture, etc., I think it's fair to say that much of that sort of thing has been significantly upleveled over the past 20-30 years.