The author doesn’t mention horses, but I think his points are right on target for the equestrian community. ETA: see .pdf in post 3.
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The article cannot be accessed without a subscription.
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Oh sorry! I thought people would get at least one free view!
Try this:What We Lose When We’re Priced Out of Our Hobbies - The Atlantic.pdf (1.2 MB)
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I read that. Nothing surprising, but yet another way people have disconnected.
I used to quilt a lot; I still have all my stuff including 2 sewing machines and so much fabric and so many UFOs… I stepped back for many reasons, including getting back into horses, but was becoming annoyed at the Evangelical takeover of my little corner of the quilting world.
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Such an intriguing title, such a disappointing execution.
I honestly don’t agree with him on the trends; IMHO there are so many more hobby options than there used to be, and overall they are more accessible, not less, with the rise of Youtube and all kinds of hobby information and availability online. Anything that involves travel or specialized facilities is more expensive, that I’d agree on.
However, I am quite worried for some of my hobbies in the coming two years, not that items will be more expensive - but that they won’t be made or available at all. The specialized $100 fishing reel he worries about may not be manufactured at any price going forward.
For example, the loss of Joann’s is a huge blow to anyone who does sewing. That was an unnecessary loss, due to vulture capitalists, but I guess any hopes we have for a second act or a replacement are quite gone now. Most fabric is imported; buying online is frustrating if you’re not expert in fabrics. And the little online specialty vendors will have their own struggles, while people who love to sew will wonder if they love to sew for $20/yard.
For us in horse-adjacent land, I worry about the impacts on Breyer Horses. Companies that make board and other physical games have already sounded an alarm.
Small parts, injection molding, if there’s something you enjoy that uses that, no promises the companies that make them will continue to do so.
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One would think that as a person who has, over the years, pursued several ridiculously expensive hobbies, including horses, I would have more sympathy for the author of the article, but, my initial reaction was a very uncharitable, “Oh, stop whining about how expensive your expensive hobbies are, you pretentious jerk.”
I think the author has misread the situation by trying to tie social isolation to hobby costs and he undercuts his own premise with most of his examples, which can be pursued, albeit differently than he might chose to do them, at very low cost. For example, you don’t have to fish for striped bass in New England with a specialized waterproof reel to enjoy fishing.
“Tabletop games?” I guess you could spend lots of money on that, but I spent many Friday evenings as a poor grad student playing Uno with a group of other poor grad students and all it cost me was a contribution to the snack food layout.
Knitting? Well, I crochet, but I can go to the informal twice/week gatherings of the knitting/crocheting group with my bag of Wal-Mart/Dollar Store yarn and get enough social interaction to last me for weeks.
Will increasing costs (or lack of materials or tools) force some people to modify the way they pursue hobbies? Yeah, I think they will. But the social and personal value of hobbies is still easily accessible to almost everyone.
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“Tabletop games” typically means Dungeons & Dragons but also the board games we all remember. There are quite a few niche companies who have used Kickstarter or are just small indie companies producing novel games that use cards, boards, and may or may not have RPG (role-playing game) features. An example is Steve Jackson Games.
TTRPGs (that’s TableTop Role Playing Games) like Dungeons & Dragons have become impressively large economically, an ecosystem of hundreds of millions of dollars that goes not just to Wizards of the Coast (now owned by Hasbro, and around 20% of its total revenue) who owns that but also people who make spinoff content, dice, minifigures, digital tools, and other accessories.
(Twitch streams of people playing D&D also raise millions of dollars for charity through Extra Life and a couple of Actual Play podcast/streams are now viable/significant media properties in their own right, notably Critical Role and Dimension 20, but there are others.)
Thanks to the internet (and especially targeted advertising through Facebook), you can be exposed to all these purchase opportunities very easily, and spend quite a lot of money should you so wish.
However, you can also play D&D completely free, either in person or through various digital/online options. You don’t even need to buy dice (though dice are fun and people do make excuses to collect them) and the core source material is free. Of course, once you start, like any hobby, it’s easy to start buying the equivalent of $500 breeches and $300 saddle pads.
What IS sad is that some of the innovative items that are fun - new indie games for example, or even his specialty innovative fishing reel (really, he’s torqued about $100 for a specialty optional item?) - may no longer be produced or available at all, because they are no longer economic to produce.
Even some of the items that are made in America - let me tell you about all the cool artisanal dice you can buy 
- may no longer be produced because they depend on equipment like vacuum pumps and resin and other components that are all imported. And dice-making and resin casting is of course its own separate hobby.
So anyway, I think his title was promising, but the text was wrong. Free hobbies are more plentiful and accessible than ever. But certainly you can also spend quite a lot of money on them if you so wish, and that amount is going up, as participants get excited about new possibilities and have more marketing creating FOMO about not buying them.
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Knitting is in a similar situation. You can still knit for free or almost free, and probably more so than before! There are free tutorials on the internet, so you don’t need a family member or a class to teach you. There are enough free patterns and free advice on the internet to last a lifetime, if you want to try something more advanced.
Knitting needles are still cheap and technically you could even make your own out of wood if you have some wood and a knife. (But bamboo needles are cheaper and easier.)
There is cheap yarn (less so going forward) but also thrift shops and online trading are a great place to find someone else’s leftovers cheap.
The danger is in, again, all the FOMO about those gorgeous merino beautifully dyed skeins that you used to only find if you wandered intentionally into a nice yarn shop, dangled in front of you while you’re trying to catch up with what is going on on Facebook. Or, more intentionally, the giant entity that is Ravelry, where not just knitting but collecting and sharing a stash can be your new hobby.
And now instead of knitting with cheap acrylic yarns like my grandmother did, you’re knitting with $25 artisanal skeins from lovingly raised sheep and alpacas that have been hand-dyed just for you.
But honestly, that’s kind of great too, because now I’m supporting that person whose hobby is lovingly raising sheep and carefully and thoughtfully preparing their wool, maybe someone I even personally know. I can’t be upset about that, even if I haven’t knitted up that skein yet.
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He’s even wrong about the community part. I used to be so isolated in my hobby pursuits. Today I have hobby friends around the world at my fingertips, people I consider my dear friends. And it costs us nothing at all to communicate once we have a computer or phone and an internet connection. None of that connection is predicated on purchasing anything with respect to the hobby.
(In truth, a lot of these communities are very supportive, if it’s a maker activity, where people will not only give free advice but send free starter items to those who are unable to access them.)
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So true. I belong to several Facebook groups for one of my hobbies and can get ideas, advice, and encouragement from people around the world. I used to have to travel to workshops and classes to interact with my fellow glass fusers, because it’s not a very common hobby in most parts of the country.
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Before I opened this I thought it was going to be about how differently products are priced when geared towards different hobbies; the one that always gets me the most is the Sweet PDZ in the wee little shaker can marketed for chickens being way higher than the 50lb bags marketed for horses.
Breeding chickens is my hobby and I do have concerns about costs in the coming years. I’m trying to plan out projects to get me more and more free ranging opportunities for the birds as the years go by, it’s just an awful lot of work and then stuff like lumber and materials for different infrastructure needs.
While my spouse’s tabletop hobby is peanuts compared to my horse hobby, I try not to think of how much money in paper and cardboard is sitting in my living room, especially when our collection spans from “Love Letter” to “Gloomhaven”. Most of the DnD books and folders are living in the trunk of the car, ready for any campaign that might spring up (there are at least 3 active among our church community alone, plus the local adventurer’s league game, and conventions, and one-off games …) but the games take up almost as much room as the actual reading books.
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I would argue it’s bigger than that. My ex was super into Warhammer 40K and that is absolutely a pay to play hobby. The way my ex played, it was easily a several thousand dollar year hobby quite literally just spent on plastic. AI estimates super fans which he was spend upwards of $6/year which track from my experience.
D&D can definitely be done on a budget at least!
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I’m with you. The guy sounds like a pretentious twit. Every problem he points is because he wants the best $100 fishing reel out there.
I could whine that I was priced out of showing my newly acquired road pony a couple years ago because a set of Freedman’s harness cost $5K. However, a harness by Mike Herron cost $1500 and if the brass is clean, no one can really tell the difference. Trust me on this. I’ve had people tell me it’s ‘beautiful harness.’ It’s really not, but when the brass is shined up it looks great. (Used harness is also an option, but not a good option because used pony show harness is bit of a unicorn, used horse size fine harness is a much easier find).
As someone else mentioned, I’m concerned about where I’m going to buy thread. The selection at Walmart & Hobby Lobby sucks, and the thread itself is meh. I’ve bought fabric online for years, but thread is a different animal. I know where to get it online, but color matching will be a problem. And there is no social aspect to me sewing, unless you count my creepy neighbor who wanted to come watch me sew. That ‘relationship’ ended before it started. LOL.
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Is there a quilt shop anywhere nearby? They tend to have the really good brands of thread. Will be pricey compared to big box stores, though.
Like everyone else, I’ll figure something out. There is a sewing shop/ sewing machine dealer within walking distance, but they are so stuck up & unhelpful, I won’t shop there. This place once looked at my old Brother, in it’s box with a Wal-Mart price tag, and said “We don’t work on those Brothers.” Whatever. I’ve bought 3 or 4 machines since then, none from them. I walked down there when I needed a replacement presser foot and they kept telling me I didn’t need it.
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You should start an only fans and let him pay you
