Someone has to pay for those cheap Internet services. I guess it’s us.
Goods and services are getting cheaper. Many are free. Blame it on the Internet and globalization. The upside is that businesses can create new business models where costs are minimal, as Chris Anderson explains in Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The downside is that our brain chemistry is wired by evolution to love a deal. We love to consume, as Ellen Ruppel Shell writes in Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.
In an age where we can go only a few minutes without staring at a computer screen (smartphones included), it is fair to ask what it is we are consuming. The answer is: Time and information.