>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
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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.
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...