" From groceries to news, we’re paying premiums to escape the problems we already paid taxes to fix. "

Free Markets, Paywalls Everywhere: How Capitalism Is Charging You Twice

There was a time when the term “free markets” suggested a landscape of genuine competition, innovation, and broad access. Today, it’s more likely to conjure images of paywalls, subscriptions, surge pricing, and 24/7 monetization—and somehow, the service often feels worse than ever. Let’s be honest: you’re no longer just a customer. You’re a revenue stream being harvested in layers. You pay for the product. You pay to avoid the ads. You pay to opt out of tracking. You pay to skip the queue. And somehow... the product still falls short.

You Pay and You Still Get Ads

Remember when "ad-free" meant exactly that? Today, it’s a blurry line. YouTube Premium may eliminate pre-roll ads, but it doesn’t stop creators from weaving sponsored content directly into their videos. Spotify Premium still pushes its own in-house promotions. The promise of an ad-free experience has morphed into an ad-less one, at least until a brand deal appears seamlessly inside the content you’re watching or listening to. It’s like paying for a meal and then being charged extra to sit down, use cutlery, and not be insulted by the waiter. You’ve paid for the product, but the hidden costs and annoyances persist.

Public Goods, Private Problems

Our public services are struggling. Public transport is underfunded, healthcare systems are buckling under pressure, and schools are asking parents to supply basic classroom materials. We pay taxes to fund these essential services, yet the moment they falter, we’re sold a private “fix.” We end up paying again for private clinics, Uber rides, private tutoring, and insurance on top of insurance. The very systems that the free market has arguably helped to erode are now being sold back to us, one premium service at a time. The market broke the system, then conveniently offered to sell us the solution.

Subscriptions for Everything, Ownership for Nothing

The modern economy is increasingly built on the concept of renting, not owning. You don’t buy software; you rent it through a subscription. You don’t own music; you stream it until a licensing change removes your favorite playlist. We don’t even fully own our physical products anymore—your smart coffee machine might demand brand-specific pods and firmware updates. The old model was simple: buy once, use forever. The new model is more like this: pay forever, or lose access. We’re perpetually leasing our digital and physical lives, without the security or control that true ownership once provided.

Surge Pricing Is Just Legalized Gouging

When a train strike hits, an Uber fare can triple. When a cold snap arrives, electricity tariffs can skyrocket. When a crisis occurs, hotels hike their prices. This isn’t simply “dynamic pricing.” It’s monopoly math with a friendly-looking user interface. Surge pricing exploits moments of high demand and low supply, not to balance the market, but to maximize profit at the consumer’s expense. It’s a mechanism that legally allows companies to gouge consumers during their most vulnerable moments.

We were told the market would set us free. Instead, we have been given a series of increasingly frustrating “freedoms”:

• The freedom to choose between various tiers of inconvenience.
• The freedom to pay to escape the consequences of austerity.
• The freedom to keep funding the same broken system—twice.

Welcome to the free market. It’s anything but.