The Hoverboard Life

I listened to a podcast by planet money about the hoverboard that everybody seems to be obsessed with. This is the little two wheeled segway scooter thing that has recently hit the streets. The podcast was about how it was very hard to track down the inventor of the hoverboard because nobody could find a website or a company that made them. To buy a hoverboard in America you either have to go through an American company who act as the middle man between you and China. Or go deep into the internet and order (for a lot less) through a sketchy Chinese website. The podcast basically explained how the system in China is different from the system here. In China there are many factories that will tackle an idea and all start producing the same thing while sharing the design and blueprint of the products. In America an inventor will generally come up with an idea about a certain product and then patent that product and then sue anybody who manufacturers a copy of the idea that they came up with. I thought that it was very interesting how the podcast showed these differences and educated people about them through a popular product like a hoverboard.

Planet Money Podcast

I listened to a podcast created by NPR in a series focusing on money. This particular episode was about how gyms work on an economic level. Basically the podcast covered how gyms want lots of people to buy memberships to their gym but they don't want anybody to come and actually workout. They do this because people using the workout equipment cost the gym money whereas people who don't use any workout equipment but still pay their gym memberships essentially generate the gym free money. The podcast covered many techniques that gyms use in their advertising and design that create a situation where people would want to buy and renew their gym memberships every year without actually using any of the gym equipment.

This podcast was very interesting to me because even though I have heard a lot about "scams" or other tricks that companies can use to make you pay money without actually getting anything in return, I have never really seen a real life example of this happening. I'm sure that it is happening all around me all the time but I think that I've probably learned to tune it out. This podcast inspired me to really think about all the different things that companies will do just to make a tiny bit of money. They talked about how gyms will hide their equipment in the back or downstairs so that the experience of going to the gym isn't necessarily about working out and actually using the gym equipment. This seems crazy when you see it in plain sight, however when you are the unknowing gym-goer you think its normal for the gym experience to not be all about working out.

I thought that this podcast was a very good exposure of whats behind the curtain of a capitalist society. This podcast is something that I would recommend to anybody because it just makes you realize whats going on a little bit more than you did before.