[iwanttocomment]

Booze, cigarettes, gas (and car ownership costs) and all-night diners used to be affordable across the US.

These days, what's cheap? Internet access, social media, music/podcast/video services, certain games, fast fashion hauls.

An actual night out with friends these days? Not cheap at all. It's a rational economic decision.

[coldtea]

Never stopped people from piss poor countries from enjoying all of those things.

Besides the change is probably the same for the better off Gen Z people as well.

[rs999gti]

> Booze, cigarettes, gas

If the government took less of a tax cut from these items they would be a little more affordable.

Also, Z's still smoke, but it's in the form of Zyn patches and nicotine bars.

Booze is mostly a women and poor person thing now. And gas, most of the Z's don't seem to drive because their parents always chauffeured them.

[PaulHoule]

... and vaping. Though it's pretty strange to me to see people of all ages who seem pretty cool (like somebody really creative who runs a green/handmade clothing store and teaches classes in block printing and such) and then they take a hit of a vape in front of me and I think a little less of them.

(My Z son though will smoke a pipe occasionally, we watched the Russian version of Sherlock Holmes which made him carve an absurdly large pipe which I even took a few puffs of; my nicotine use is at the once yearly level, I'll share a ceremonial cigar and if I'm visiting a third world country I might get a pack of the local cigs)

[red-iron-pine]

it's a woman thing? wtf

[rs999gti]

You don't live in the city and see the cocktail hour, tini time signs and ads? Also, all the cocktail menus are for really sweet drinks.

I assume this is appealing to young or women drinkers?

[PaulHoule]

My nearby city had two all night diners and an all-night sub shop before the pandemic plus the Wegmans supermarket was 24 hours and the Wal-Mart supercenter was 24 hours. Now it all shuts down.

My Gen Z son is a gearhead and is proud of his '96 Buick. Although he finds "anti-woke" politics attractive, he won't listen to people carping about the price of gas, he thinks the current price is a bargain and even if we got the $400/ton CO2 tax I advocate he says it would be worth it to him to pay $7-$8 a gallon. He gets what a miracle fossil fuels are [1]

I got my driver's license when I was 21 which was slow for my generation (there was the time I borrowed a Cadillac de Ville from a hung over friend to take the driver's test, clipped a curb and failed it, then got back in and drove home) he wasn't in a hurry either. Many of his friends are in their early 20s and still don't drive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_slave

[wrp]

We had that same change in my town, though for seemingly unrelated reasons. Even before COVID, the 24-hour Wal-Mart supercenter started closing from midnight to 6 AM because of shoplifters. The 24-hour restaurants closed at night during COVID and the customers didn't come back after normal business resumed. I do wonder where night owls go these days.

[PaulHoule]

Our homeless colony has 10x'ed in recent years and been moved away from a spot owned by the Norfolk Southern railroad to one owned by the city, immediately behind the Wal-Mart. The area is now saturated by untreated schizophrenics and security alone is a reason for reduced hours.