The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough, and invariably some people will spend more of their discretionary income on said hobby over others.
And businesses are businesses - be their your local small business bicycle shop or a mega-conglomerate like Disney - and as such will always optimize for those people who are open to spending a larger proportion on said hobby than the median consumer.
I'm sure if we all took a look at everyone else's hobbies and spending, we would find stuff which we would view as ridiculous consumption but the other person would view as valuable.
For example, I've been pretty competitive in powerlifting for several years (especially as I used to crosstrain in HS for wrestling and track&field) and unsurprisingly spending significantly more than other people getting personal training from coaches, buying IWF-certified barbells, Nike Romaleos, Titan bumper plates, etc. Someone who isn't into powerlifting would look at me as being weird (why not just go to a gym 2 times a week and call it a day?!?) but I derive utility from it.
As long as someone is able to afford their hobby without impacting their professional and personal lives, there is nothing wrong with it.
The reality actually is you do not need to spend a lot of money to participate in any hobby. Some hobbies are expensive, and may have gotten more expensive in recent years, but at least in my experience and social circles it's very easy to participate in hobbies without spending a lot of money.
>The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough,
No shortage of very cheap or free hobbies. Walking is free. Cooking is what you'd spend anyway for food (or cheaper if it helps you skip delivery), watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable), coding is cheap, playing 8-bit games is cheap, a book club is cheap, sewing is cheap, drawing is cheap, writing is cheap...
In almost all cases you are still purchasing, consuming, and being targeted in some shape or form.
Literally every hobby has an incentive to target those practitioners who heavily spend and spend time with other similar minded practitioners.
> Cooking
And you see the rise of influencer and performance driven marketing by firms like Henckels and Le Crueset (nothing wrong with that) along with those who truly love cooking specific types of cuisine overindexing on unique or subsets of ingredients (Geographic Indicator or bust)
> watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable)
And you see plenty of movie enthusiasts optimizing for 4K displays, high fidelity sound, or falling deep into IP-driven subcultures like Disney-fanatics
> coding is cheap
And you see whales who spend inordinate amounts on money on mechanical keyboards, 4K monitors, personal rigs, etc
> playing 8-bit games is cheap
Retro gamers.
> book club is cheap
Book subscriptions and local bookstore-led book clubs
---
Show me the hobby, and I will show you the whales that all businesses in that specific hobby will target.
Yes, I've noticed the person you're replying to is frequently moving goalposts in this thread. They seem uncomfortable with the idea that you don't need to consume consume consume to enjoy an activity or hobby.
They are trying to suggest, I think, that no hobby is pure from rampant consumerism. Which is probably correct. I don't see what that has to do with those of us who don't feel the need to buy $100 socks or $1000 juice machines or what have you.
> Show me the hobby, and I will show you the whales that all businesses in that specific hobby will target.
Sure, they can exist. Does that mean you are obligated to purchase?
> And you see plenty of movie enthusiasts optimizing for 4K displays, high fidelity sound, or falling deep into IP-driven subcultures like Disney-fanatics
It almost sounds like the most exciting part of a hobby for you is buying things.
Everyone has some kind of consumer mindset and is spending more on a specific good or service than others may think is reasonable.
If you want you can show all of us on HN your bills and we will all probably find stuff which you spend on which we may think is unreasonable to us but is reasonable to you.
So long as you are making sure to save around 60% of your monthly income post-401k/IRA and rent/mortgage what you do with the other 40% is literally discretionary, and isn't hurting you.
Everybody thinks they are not a sucker, but everyone is.
Of course I spend money, I'm not living a joyless austere lifestyle. But you're deflecting and changing the subject. So, let's return back to your original comment
> The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough
All I said is that you don't need to spend tons of money on a hobby. Maybe you think you do, because of consumer mindset, but you don't.
Is that wrong? Do you still think that hobbies require spending lots of money and consuming? Or do you acknowledge that a hobby can be fulfilling and enjoyable without much money and consumption?
I have 2 hobbies: maths and chess. For maths: I borrow books from the library or pirate them from anna's archive and do problems from the books on printer paper. Very cheap hobby overall. For chess: I bought cheap plastic pieces and a board from amazon (cost me £25/$30), I pirate chess books from anna's archive and I play on lichess (it's free).
Also without sounding like an elitist: not all hobbies are equal. I have so much more respect for someone who sits in their room and studies something difficult like analytic number theory, or someone like you who powerlifts over some "Disneyadult" whose life revolves around buying Made-in-China Disney branded products (i.e. their hobby is just clicking "buy" on some site).
Everyone already does. It's called hobbies. Some people make their hobbies their entire identity, others less so.