Your subscriptions are raising your rent (yes, really!)

Your subscriptions are raising your rent

Written by Aiden Valenciano – MurmrX

“It’s not just the roof over your head that’s gotten expensive. It’s the weight of everything you now need to survive inside it.”

I. Welcome to the Subscription Era

Let’s stop pretending rent is high because of “supply and demand.” Rent is high because everyone is trying to survive a system that charges for things that used to be free. From landlords to freelancers, we’ve all become accidental middlemen—jacking up prices on each other just to stay afloat in a world where everything comes with a monthly fee. It’s not just inflation. It’s subscription saturation. And it’s making everything—including housing—stupidly unaffordable.

Once upon a time, your bills were simple: rent, electricity, water, phone, groceries. The end. You could name them on one hand. Now? You’d need an Excel spreadsheet, two therapy sessions, and a deep breath before logging into your bank account.

Today’s life expenses include:

• Streaming (Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Apple TV, YouTube Premium)
• Cloud storage (Dropbox, iCloud, Google One)
• VPNs, antivirus software, smart home monitoring
• Therapy apps with unlockable trauma tools
• Fitness apps, food tracking, meditation subscriptions
• Period trackers, ovulation predictions, sleep coaching
• Dog camera alerts, bark translator services, custom pet food plans
• Food delivery boosts, tip matching, speed-up surcharges
• Dating app upgrades just to see who ghosted you
• Apps that remind you to breathe—$5.99/month for oxygen awareness

You’re not living anymore. You’re renting your identity in monthly installments.

And what makes it worse? These services don’t feel like bills. They feel like little helpers. Small luxuries. Harmless boosts. Until you realize:

You’re subscribed to being okay. That’s not convenience—that’s codependency.

It’s not just capitalism anymore. It’s emotional outsourcing.
You’re not buying products—you’re leasing self-worth one login at a time.

Even *relaxation* is gated behind a paywall now. Want to nap guilt-free? There’s a subscription for that. Want to fall asleep faster? There’s a “scientifically-backed” white noise soundscape app for $79.99/year. Want to stop burnout? Just $9.99/month and we’ll email you a reminder not to burn out.

You’re not just paying for access—you’re paying for permission.

II. Your Landlord Has Subscriptions Too

We always talk about landlords like they’re sitting in Scrooge McDuck-style vaults. But many of them are drowning too—just a level up.

Yes, they own property. But property now comes with platforms, portals, smart locks, cleaning services, and six different apps to process one payment. Landlords don’t just collect rent—they pay rent to software companies.

They’ve got:

• Property tax forecasting tools
• Digital lock subscriptions (e.g. Latch, August, ButterflyMX)
• Cloud-based rent collection systems (RentRedi, AppFolio, Buildium)
• Online maintenance scheduling software
• Airbnb-style auto-pricing tools
• Security camera cloud storage
• Utility bill-back systems
• Monthly contractor retainers
• Legal AI to auto-generate tenant notices

And that’s just for managing a building. Now add:

• Uber One for personal transport
• Amazon Prime for business and home
• Canva Pro or Adobe for flyers
• Spotify for their “waiting room playlist”
• A personal accountant’s QuickBooks subscription

They’re just like you—only upstream in the economic river. And when they get squeezed, the pressure trickles down to you. They’re raising your rent not because your faucet works better, but because their credit card statement is 7 pages long.

Landlords are no longer just gatekeepers of shelter. They’re customers too. Paying for convenience. Paying for automation. Paying to keep up.
And you're paying for that through them.

The price of modern living doesn’t just rise with greed. It rises with the invisible costs we all pretend are normal.

They’re not just charging you to live there.
They’re charging you because they can’t afford to live without all the same digital systems you’re also drowning in.

III. Scarcity Becomes a Brand

You’re not just buying access—you’re buying *avoidance* of the feeling that everyone else knows something you don’t.

Modern business models don’t just sell services anymore. They sell *fear of being left out.* They’ve monetized exclusion and wrapped it in sleek UI. Now, **scarcity is aspirational**—and it’s algorithmically enforced.

There’s an app for everything—until you can’t afford it. Then there’s a version of life you don’t get to participate in:

• No Pro features? You’re not a real creator.
• No Boost? You won’t be seen on the dating app.
• No Early Access? You’re already late to the trend.
• No Delivery Plus? Guess your fries are soggy and 42 minutes late.

And the sick twist? You start feeling like *you* are less.

Scarcity used to mean survival.
Now it means status.

You’re not missing out on features—you’re being *engineered* to feel behind, under-equipped, and unworthy unless you “upgrade.” The emotional labor of modern life isn’t about chasing joy—it’s about managing the silent anxiety of falling behind.

They’ve created a world where free = failure. Where limited = embarrassing. Where not having = not mattering.

In the subscription era, your value is measured by how many monthly fees you can maintain without collapsing. It’s a system that says: If you can’t pay to stay visible, you don’t deserve to be seen.

And that? That’s not convenience. That’s curated dependence.

IV. The Trickle-Down Inflation Nobody Warned You About

Everyone’s charging more now. Not because they’re greedy—because they’re desperate. Because *they* got charged more by someone else.

It’s not just inflation. It’s **inherited inflation**—passed down like trauma, disguised as “business.”

App developers now have to pay more for cloud storage, servers, security certificates, AI tools, payment gateways. So what do they do? They raise subscription prices on the users.

Those users include:

• Freelancers who now need 5 different platforms just to invoice you
• Artists who now have to pay to watermark their own work
• Coaches who need multiple AI scheduling tools to manage their calendars
• Therapists paying for encrypted video platforms to stay HIPAA compliant

Even your barista probably pays for Canva Pro, Substack, and Etsy fees just to keep their side hustle afloat.

And guess who ends up absorbing all of it?
You. The tenant. The client. The consumer. The final human in the monetization food chain.

They got charged, so they charge you. You get charged, so you go silent, and maybe go into debt quietly while pretending everything’s fine.

This is the invisible ecosystem of desperation—a chain of micro-hikes, nickel-and-dimes, and “$1.99/mo to unlock”s that all point back to one thing:

No one can afford the world they helped build.

And when everyone’s solution is to pass the cost downstream, the weight piles up at the bottom. And the people at the bottom? They're renters. They’re paycheck-to-paycheck workers. They’re *you.*

V. Passive Income Became “Charge Someone Else”

“How can I make 1,000 people give me $2.99/month without noticing?”

This was once a clever business model. Now it's a survival instinct dressed in Canva templates and affiliate links. What we used to call ‘passive income’ is now just **recycled exhaustion**—everyone trying to make a buck off everyone else’s burnout.

We turned the dream of freedom into a cycle of monetizing inconvenience. Got knowledge? Sell a course. Got access? Sell a subscription. Got trauma? Turn it into a toolkit and upsell the workbook.

The creator economy didn’t empower everyone. It made everyone a product manager—with anxiety.

And here’s the math no one wants to admit:

• If you’re trying to get 1,000 people to pay $4.99/month…
• ...and each of those 1,000 people is ALSO trying to get 1,000 people to pay *them* $4.99/month…
• ...then what we’ve built isn’t a creator economy. It’s a circular pyramid.

Every micro-fee you charge someone adds another brick to their invisible wall of fatigue. The more people try to generate “passive” income, the more active everyone else has to be to keep up.

We stopped asking: “Is this useful?” and started asking: “Can I automate it and charge someone?”

What used to be generosity became “scalable empathy.” What used to be connection became a product funnel. You’re not part of a movement—you’re a lead.

And the cruel irony? Many of us are both the hunter *and* the prey. You’re signing people up while forgetting to cancel your own auto-renewals. You’re profiting off the exact ecosystem that’s draining you.

It's not a passive income stream anymore.
It’s a **mutual extraction loop.**

VI. Survival as a Luxury

Survival used to mean food, water, shelter. Now it means:

• Apps to track your water intake
• Services that deliver the food, but only if you pay extra to skip the wait
• Shelter that includes a digital lock you pay monthly for—even if it breaks

You’re now paying rent for your:

• Apps
• TV access
• Music library
• Sleep tracking
• Sexual privacy (via Incognito Mode™)
• Breathe reminders—$5.99/month so you don’t forget to inhale

What once came free with being human is now itemized.

The modern world is charging us to be conscious.

And here’s the part no one wants to say out loud:

• There is absolutely no reason a fast-food burger meal for two should be over $30—multiple times the minimum wage.
• No reason a single month of Netflix should be $22.99 with ads.
• No reason an alarm clock app should cost $89.99/year.
• No reason Uber should disguise a markup as a discount: “15% off (up to $15) on orders over $25” — that’s not a deal, that’s behavioral manipulation.

You are being charged for convenience, then emotionally convinced that without it, you’ll fall apart.

Self-care became software. Security became a login. Happiness became a subscription tier.

And the moment you cancel one of them? You don’t just lose the service—you lose status. You lose perceived efficiency. You lose the illusion of being okay.

Because everything is now tied to performance: health apps, hustle trackers, therapy logs, AI journaling tools, focus boosters, mood graphers.

Even your sadness is being monetized. Even your healing has a payment plan.

This isn’t luxury living. This is luxury survival. And most of us can’t afford to keep playing.

VII. So Now What?

You’re not crazy for feeling overwhelmed. You’re not weak for canceling a few subscriptions. And you’re definitely not lazy for opting out of a system that bills your identity back to you in monthly installments.

This isn’t just about saving $9.99/month. It’s about reclaiming attention, energy, and dignity in a world that’s commodified your every micro-moment. You don’t need a subscription to matter. You don’t need premium access to show up fully in your life.

So take the audit. Set the trap. Cancel the app that shames you into meditating. Breathe without being billed for it. Rest without performance metrics. Exist without the upgrade.

Because freedom doesn’t begin when you earn more—it begins the moment you start needing less.

And if you’re ready for the next layer, ask yourself:

What’s still charging you… even when you’re not using it?

Financially. Mentally. Emotionally.

Because some of the most dangerous subscriptions aren’t to software or apps—they’re to versions of yourself you’ve outgrown. Or identities you didn’t consent to. Or people who once made sense... but now just auto-renew.

Next up: Subscriptions We Forget to Cancel
The ones buried in our bank statements—and the ones buried in our lives.

Written by Aiden Valenciano – MurmrX