This weekend, I went into what looked like an indie smoothie shop and dropped an ungodly amount of money on a delicious sounding shake… only to watch the lady drop a scoops of powder and ONE freeze-dried strawberry into a cup with ice. Tasted like ass.
Yet they do have regulars to that shit, and nobody is taking them out of business. I want my fucking $11 back. So anyone reading this doing a class action against Herbalife, I want in…
But I doubt it, since it’s a scam that’s so normalized we don’t realize it’s a scam anymore.
First time I tried one they mixed it wrong and it just tasted like chalk. All I knew was it was some kind of smoothie shop my wife took me to that a family friend of hers owned. Then I saw the price after tasting the chalk and pretending to like it. Never wanted it since
Some people jusrt like to be seen carrying these cups. I read about someone who put their Starbucks coffee in a generic travel mug, and their friend said to them “how will everyone know youre drinking Starbucks?”
Their Schtick is that people start Herbalife “franchises” under another name, but then serve Herbalife. I believe they are generally not supposed to use the word “Herbalife” anywhere on their merchandising.
If it wasn’t Herbalife, it would be some other food service-grade ingredients. I’m not sure it would be any better, but I’m also not sure it would be any worse.
Last I saw, Tropical Smoothie Cafe (national chain) does fresh or frozen fruit exclusively for $5-6, and Herbalife does cheap flavored soy powders for $11
There is a massive quality difference. They don’t even advertise readily that there’s soy in in them; I had to look it up. Thankfully I’m not allergic. And that’s the thing. They sell fake shit and intentionally hide that fact.
There’s certainly good smoothie places that are no comparison. But that’s not what these places would be. If you’re setting up a smoothie shop and decide to use Herbalife, it probably wouldn’t otherwise be replaced by fresh fruit. Instead it would be replaced by some other protein powder, which will typically make shit smoothies.
Fully agree with you though on the allergy warnings
I’ve never heard of them. Looks like the nearest one is 4 hours away from me, and there are zero in my home state or any state I like to visit.
Actually, a quick google seems to suggest Smoothie King primarily uses frozen fruit for their smoothies. They offer “nutritional add ins” that are protein powders. This is like Tropical Smoothie.
Maybe I wasn’t clear about Herbalife. The ENTIRE smoothie is protein powder. Here is a typical herbalife smoothie. The entire smoothie. Others are the same with artificial flavors. Then one freeze-dried strawberry dropped in lets them say there’s real fruit in it.
Here is a (genuinely random) sample from Smoothie King. A little protein added at the end, but primarily frozen fruit. This is reinforced by the fact that they sell fruit “smoothie bowls” for a comparable price. Herbalife has no fruit on hand to sell.
Even fewer will know that osteopathy is exactly the same type of nonsense. No, an osteopath is not (necessarily) a “bone doctor”.
The main confusion is that, in the US, schools of osteopathic medicine picked up enough real science that US Doctors of Osteopathy are real physicians… Even if the osteopathy part of their training is still pseudoscience.
DLCs: Games are expected to have DLCs nowadays, so game devs purposefully hold back some ideas for potential DLCs, often crippling the main game as a result.
Subscription services: For pretty much anything, but especially those automated monthly payments, which you won’t bother cancelling, even if you feel like you’re not using the service to its fullest.
It’s got to the point some people complain when there isn’t DLC. They just want to play the same game forever. Also, paid games with free to play style bullshit. At least as scummy as these free to play games can be you can at least try them out.
Also, DLC is almost a complete misnomer nowadays. Everything is content and is downloadable.
College. The learning is fine, the cost is freaking out of hand. I never went and have no regrets. My daughter is going now and I feel like I’m supporting a scam.
Anything you take out loans for is a scam. I doubt the cost of houses or college would be anything like it is today if people weren’t enabled to pay it by banks.
In Australia you get a loan for university, but the loan is an interest-free loan with the government (it’s just indexed for inflation once per year), you don’t have to pay it off until you’re earning over around AU$55k/year, and the government heavily subsidises the cost for citizens and permanent residents.
Definitely not true in all of Europe. We pay in the Netherlands. In fact, I decided to go to school here since I never got to in the US, and found out I can’t even take out a student loan because I’m over 35.
Depends on the degree. Internet made colleges much more obsolete than what society care to admit. This is an oversimplification of course. Education is a complex subject.
So much shit around bicycles is a scam because barring some major inventions like shocks for mountainbikes or maybe carbon frames it’s very much a solved problem, but it doesn’t fit into a capitalist economy if everybody just buys one bicycle and then occasionally parts for it to fix it.
Same in Denmark, just have a bike there can handle your needs and that’s it. One bike can transport you everyday and be a Mountain bike(we don’t have mountain’s)
Americans take it as received wisdom that homes are meant to generate income through higher valuations over time. We just assume home prices go up over time and if it’s not actively increasing in value, the home was a failure.
Many other countries don’t treat homes this way. They are dwellings, invest what you want to your liking, but it’s not a retirement account.
This focus on wealth generation creates lots of perverse incentives, such as exclusionary zoning, building on lots that are overly large, and suburban sprawl. These don’t reflect people’s actual, desired form of housing but rather maximize wealth for homeowners at the expense of everyone else.
We have a completely warped view of housing that causes us to be preyed upon by real estate agents, landlords, HOAs and the like.
I paid for an extended warranty for my TV, because the TV was expensive (83 inch LG OLED C2), the extended warranty was only $100, and it extended the warranty from 1 year to 5.
Check your credit card perks too - A lot of credit cards give you one year extended warranty for free.
US warranties are the real scam. Only one year for a $3500 TV? They don’t get away with that in countries with proper consumer protection… In Australia, products have to last as long as “a reasonable consumer” would expect them to last, for example 10-15 years for a fridge. The company must repair or replace the product if it breaks down during that time frame, regardless of how long they say the warranty is for. If it’s a large appliance, they must pick it up and drop it off for free. You must be able to return a product to the store you bought it from for warranty issues - they can’t say that you have to go to the manufacturer. Saying “no refunds” is illegal (except for on second-hand products). Companies that violate these rules get fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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