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The Shocking Reality Behind 36 Famous Industries That Rely On Keeping Customers Blind
Have you ever stopped to think about what's happening behind the scenes in places like the ice cream shop down the street or the IT office that handles your tickets at work every day? Well, probably not because, simply put, we just don’t know what's truly happening.
And that’s exactly what a user on the AskReddit community realized after asking the question: “What industry is entirely built on a house of cards and would collapse overnight if people realized the truth about it?” We’ve selected some of the most surprising answers.
More info: Reddit
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#1
Life coaches, business coaches, all of them. When you dig into the background of these people it’s all a sham. The majority have not built up enough experience to ‘coach ‘ anything but expect you to pay for their advice. I know a woman who used to work in HR in my office. Unpleasant person, liked to gossip, not particularly good at her job. She is now declaring she is an Executive Coach, has never coached anyone in her life. Tried to connect with me on LinkedIn, no thanks. The celeb ones are the worst of all.
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#2
The influencer industry. Half of it’s just people pretending to enjoy things they got for free.
DennyS (denzoren) 5 hours ago
I'd say it's more than half...most of them either got it for free or hoping that by saying they like it, they'd get paid or get more for free...on a personal note lol, I can't stand watching a video of someone eating....especially when they do it in an exaggerated manner...just gives me the ick. Like those "we got this and lets see what it tastes like and the camera stays on them as they take a huge bite" or worse "the head nodding" like...it could be the most tasteless thing and they'll be nodding like they found the fountain of youth lol
#3
Artificial Intelligence. Everyone’s saying it can do everything, and once they realize it can’t, we’re looking at another recession on the scale of 2008.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 6 hours ago
If genAI was really so revolutionary and lifechanging, the corporates wouldn't try SO HARD to shoehorn it literally everywhere and force people to use it
I truly had no idea that so many industries could be on the brink of collapsing. All it would take, at times, would be for people to realize how unnecessary some of these industries truly are. And thus, enters the concept of “life coaches,” with some users even calling it a “sham.”
Surprisingly enough, according to The Coaching Academy, life coaching can allegedly be traced back to the 1980s, after Timothy Gallwey published a book describing his experience as a sports coach trying to incorporate more humanizing techniques into his work. A real-life Ted Lasso, if you will. But according to netizens, the seed he planted isn’t quite enough to make it a stable (or legit) job.
#4
Bitcoin. The whole thing is based on what the next guy might pay for it. Reality is, there's nothing behind it.
Edit: The part that surprises me most is that people figured out that NFTs were worthless, but they're somehow still unaware that cyber money is just another scam. There's a reason why the bitcoin whales are dumping their portfolios while they can.
DennyS (denzoren) 5 hours ago
NFTs, ah yes, I remember looking at it like, huh....and when it crashed I was like, hehe. lol
#6
The kids travel sports industry. $3,000+ per year so a 9 yr old can play ball. Sorry, your kid isn’t going to get a D1 scholarship because he played “travel” ball at the 10U level.
Some jobs that we probably wouldn't necessarily consider to be hanging by a thread, were some of the most popular replies, like health insurance — but the explanation did make sense. A user points out that if everyone were to cancel their policies, prices would immediately plummet. We see their point.
Then, we have the beauty industry. The main concern is on the fact that those who use skincare products might eventually realize that many of them “are carcinogenic.” The director of MD Anderson’s Integrative Medicine Program confirms this to a certain degree, warning that certain products may have formaldehyde or 1,4-dioxane, which are quite toxic to humans. Yikes.
#7
Real estate agents. The NRA(national realtors association) is the biggest lobby in America. Not the other gun NRA. Not Israel. Realtors. Without the lobbyists, theyre being replaced by AI/apps in under 5 years.
Jeremy James 3 hours ago
Another, the National Restaurant Association, lobbies against any effort to reform the tipped minimum wage. Easily the 3rd or 4th worst NRA.
#8
The beauty industry would collapse the second women realize that most of the products they use are carcinogenic and full of endocrine disruptors making their skin uglier. If you disrupt your skin barrier, you are causing oxidative stress and aging faster.
Try removing steps from your routine, keep it minimal and stop over consuming. Each new thing you want to add to try will interact with the other ingredients that you put on.
Earonn - 5 hours ago
Go one step further: that industry will die the second women realise that they don't owe it to anyone to be 'beautiful', let alone 's**y'. Only those for whom beauty is a hobby would remain, that market would crash so hard. But no, just because Andrew "Fvckface" Tate and his ballsuckers say that a woman is in her prime when she's 21, otherwise reasonable women whine at the first little wrinkle that they got from when they used to laugh with their friends.
Tax prep is a big one, and the reasoning behind this industry possibly being on the rocks is none other than the possibility that Americans might just realize that in most countries, you don’t need to pay for this kind of service. Generally speaking, in plenty of countries, you can simply head on over to the dedicated association and fill in your tax return for free.
In fact, in some situations, you don’t need to file your taxes at all. Per experts at WTS Local, most European countries offer special tax regimes that will help those who need to manually manage their own taxes. Alternatively, in certain countries like Portugal or France, income tax is taken directly from your salary. Much easier.
#10
Tax prep. they lobby to keep it this absurd so they can sell a fix, but every other developed country just does it for you for free.
Michael Largey 2 hours ago
If a tax code is easy for the average person to understand, then it would also be easy for the average person to understand how fair it was.
#11
School Photos. Yeah, they can pick a "Jurassic" background if they want, but It's like $50 for a couple wallet photos and a 4x6 now. I honestly don't know who is buying these.
DennyS (denzoren) 5 hours ago
We never had those or yearbooks...I think it happened once and it wasn't published lol
#12
Advertising. Advertising fuels the internet, because companies think it's worth paying to force you to watch ads that cover the article you're trying to read. IDK about y'all, but sitting in front of the screen waiting for my video to start makes me *dis*inclined to buy from the company that's making me wait.
Earonn - 5 hours ago
Just in case: when you're on YouTube on a smart TV, for me it works fine to go back as soon as the ad starts and starting the video again. Usually another ad comes up and I do the same. Third time, the actual video starts. No idea if that works on computers, too, but hey, what do you have to lose?
Megachurches (including Scientology) are also holding by a thread, due to their questionable beliefs and extreme methods. Many people believe that once followers realize how much money, time, and patience they’ve invested in these megachurches, the whole thing could come crashing down like a house of cards.
Additionally, funeral services are also finicky, often preying on the most vulnerable people who are hurting and grieving, wishing to honor their loved ones. Because of this, some companies can inflate prices as much as they want. A user even shared that they prepaid for cremations, which ended up costing only $1,000. A good yet morbid bargain.
#13
Private equity. The idea is great, thriving financial business invests in smaller business so they can get their foot in the door and once they do the profits will flow back to the PE firm.
In reality the PE firm comes in and guts everything possible, personnel, amenities, perks, anything they can find so that the business doesn’t actually do anything better, they just have lower operating costs.
The lower operating costs leads to a reduce in quality of service and skilled workers. The PE firm uses up all profits that could be used to reinvest and essentially abandons the business other than to have a weekly meeting telling them whether they hit goals or not.
Now the business is worse off, the employees are miserable, the customers loathe the lower quality product and slowly the business does worse and worse until they sell.
Have seen this happen multiple times now, have never seen a private equity takeover make things look better for employees or customers.
#14
Health insurance. Most of dr. Cost is record keeping for insurance. Everyone cancels their insurance health care costs plummet.
#15
The US Auto Industry: once the Chinese come in we’re deep fried cooked. We buy every other disposable product from China already and recent studies suggest 70% of younger buyers will have no qualms whatsoever with owning a BYD or a Great Wall vehicle. The dealership model will fall too because who needs a pushy salesman to transact something you’ll be able to buy at Walmart or Costco.
geezeronthehill 3 hours ago
The automobile dealership system is ensconced in law, because money makes law. It will be pretty hard to unpick that system.
What shows the quintessential fragility of an industry is, in my opinion, the software industry. As a user pointed out, it’s not necessarily that people would realize what goes on behind the scenes that would cause it to collapse. Sometimes all it takes is a single developer to bring everything crumbling down.
On a similar note, NFTs are also a potentially unstable industry. For starters, have seen much of their initial hype plummet, although experts cited by Coindesk claim they have still allegedly remained popular among certain collectors. With that said, which industry would you add to this list? Or perhaps even remove? Let us know in the comments.
#16
Megachurches and whatever Elon Musk is doing.... .
Luke || Kira (he/she) 6 hours ago
At this point Muskism is basically a religion for obnoxious, insufferable atheists
#17
The entire funeral industry is the biggest money grab scam there is; it preys on grieving, vulnerable people.
My father-in-law spent $27,000 TWENTY SEVEN THOUSAND!!! on a velvet lined, gold trimmed CASKET for my MIL- all in, the entire funeral, burial and service was almost $50,000.
My husband and I pre-paid for cremations 20 years ago. It was under $1k each, I think now it's around $1700.
#18
Most software is built on a house of cards. People realizing it wouldn't make it collapse, but a lot of it could collapse from some random dev. And in fact it almost did.
#21
Buying and reselling TCG stuff like Pokemon or Magic the Gathering. If kids cannot afford the product because of the scalpers, then you lose the next generation of buyers, and people generally lose interest in card games as they get older. Plus, the scalpers are constantly just one "the hell with that expansion" away from over investing and then going broke.
edit: Peoples, no where in this did I say the TCG's are going away. I'm very specifically referring to the overblown scalper market.
DennyS (denzoren) 5 hours ago
I've noticed this with Pokemon cards. I was like let me check it out, this could be fun...and then I couldn't find original cards and the prices....let's just say I found other interests lol
#23
Ticket resale middlemen. They add zero joy, absorb all the margin, then act shocked when people hate the whole system.
DeShotz 2 hours ago
Considering the laughably toothless antitrust settlement just announced between the massive monopoly that is LiveNation/Ticketmaster and the US Dept. of Justice and the fact that Ticketmaster makes a ton of money off the resale market, those resellers are not going anywhere anytime soon.
#24
Scientology. Leah Remini got out after she spent like a million dollars to get to a high level OT (operating thetan) and they did a 'top secret' unveiling, replete with a locked briefcase, of Xenu. Lower level scientologists have no idea they're spending all that time, money, and effort to find out about some bogus alien overlord story.
#25
The entire “entry level job requiring 3–5 years of experience” system.
Companies complain about talent shortages while refusing to train anyone.
#26
Greeting cards!!! Why are they $8.00 now and why are we still sending them?!?!
Big Chungus 29 minutes ago
I make my own (graphic design) get it printed cheap and pay maybe 25 cents
#27
Chiropractors. At best they are okayish psychical trainers. At worst they could paralyze or end you. Anything they speak about that actually works is just taken from other, well researched fields of science. .
#28
You’d be surprised how fragile the oil and gas industry is.
#29
LIFE COACHES. I don’t even know how much of an “industry” it is but that’s my vote. Every single life coach I’ve ever met or had to deal with had the most messed up, out of control lives. I’ve been an attorney for a couple decades and have represented several life coaches in legal matters unrelated to their job as a Life Coach. Every one of them is an insane person without any ability to get their own lives together. They’re absolute messes personally and financially. I cannot imagine how they’ve survived in society as long as they have and can’t believe there are people who are listening to and paying them to “coach” them through their own lives.
DennyS (denzoren) 5 hours ago
Instead of a life coach, go see a therapist...and you know what, it might actually be cheaper.
#30
AI. And when it finally does crash it's taking the entire US economy with it.
#31
Esports. Unless you’re csgo or league the viewership is just dropping tremendously. How are advertisers going to justify paying millions of dollars to teams or whatever when the games esport barely averages 50k viewers and below looking at you valorant. Rocket league is a good example of a game that is perfect for a low overhead cost tournament. The games are short, rosters are small, no violence = larger audience, simple game for newcomers to understand, also the game is competitive on multiple consoles not just pc. My point is most of the other esports come off as money sinks for medium rich companies to claim as losses on their taxes. Look at what happened with marvel rivals.
#35
Consulting. Just a group of yes men who are good at throwing together decks and making mediocre CIOs feel better about their incompetence.
What do you think ?
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