Prices!!! Uber, DoorDash and the Gig Economy Are Increasing Prices. Can Millennials Afford to Lose Their Subsidy? Will AriZona Iced Tea Win the War Against Inflation? Venice Is Charging Admission!

The Best Paragraph I've Read: For the past decade, people like me—youngish, urbanish, professionalish—got a sweetheart deal from Uber, the Uber-for-X clones, and that whole mosaic of urban amenities in travel, delivery, food, and retail that vaguely pretended to be tech companies. Almost each time you or I ordered a pizza or hailed a taxi, the company behind that app lost money. In effect, these start-ups, backed by venture capital, were paying us, the consumers, to buy their products. It was as if Silicon Valley had made a secret pact to subsidize the lifestyles of urban Millennials. As I pointed out three years ago, if you woke up on a Casper mattress, worked out with a Peloton, Ubered to a WeWork, ordered on DoorDash for lunch, took a Lyft home, and ordered dinner through Postmates only to realize your partner had already started on a Blue Apron meal, your household had, in one day, interacted with eight unprofitable companies that collectively lost about $15 billion in one year. This paragraph comes from The Atlantic.  The article is titled: "The End of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy."  The article is written by Derek Thompson.  You can read the full article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/06/uber-ride-share-prices-high-inflation/661250/ Zac and Don discuss the issue of prices and how they are impacting people this summer.  They discuss the price increases in the gig economy.  They also discuss Arizona Ice Tea fighting to keep their product at ninety-nine cents.  They also talk about Venice Italy using prices to try and reduce the number of people visiting the city.   You can read the other two articles here: LA Times: "As inflation soars, how is AriZona iced tea still 99 cents?"  Written by Sam Dean https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-04-12/az-iced-tea-inflation-99-cents NPR: "A day trip to Venice will require a reservation - and a fee."  Written by the Associated Press https://www.npr.org/2022/07/03/1109615164/italy-venice-travel-new-rules#:~:text=Tourists%20who%20choose%20not%20to,the%20city%20is%20very%20crowded.