I’ve been told I’m too critical about marketing, the economy, and the state of things today. And some days, I believe it.
But then I come across someone like According to Nicole, and I feel seen.
Nicole doesn’t come at this like a marketer or a business insider. She speaks from the consumer’s point of view. She’s not chasing thought leadership. She’s breaking down the ways we get manipulated, milked, and misled in everyday life — and why so many of us are tired of pretending it’s normal.
Her latest video, Why Everything Feels Like a Scam, is a 17-minute video in observational truth. And it should make every marketer uncomfortable, especially the ones still selling shrinkflation, fake urgency, and $7 delivery “convenience” fees as “innovation.” It’s a consumer perspective that cuts through the B.S. And it perfectly explains the emotional exhaustion people feel when they look at the modern marketplace.
Nicole has built a loyal YouTube following (127K+ subscribers) by exposing the everyday con jobs we’ve all come to accept:
“Smart” tech that locks you into subscriptions
Tipping prompts for self-service
Fashion built to fall apart
Fake scarcity on ecommerce sites
Endless fees with zero added value
Her video connects the dots and makes the case that we’re not in a consumer economy anymore — we’re living in what she calls the Grift Economy.
And she’s right.
What Nicole Gets Right — and Why It Matters
Here’s a deeper look at her argument:
Subscription Hell
Nicole calls out the shift from ownership to hostage-taking. Your printer, heated car seats, and even basic safety features now require a monthly subscription. It’s not convenience. It’s slow-motion extortion.
The Tipping Trap
She shares a story about being asked to tip for bagels she picked and bagged herself. That’s not a broken system — that’s the model: guilt-fueled revenue extraction. It offloads payroll responsibility and turns customer generosity into corporate margin.
Fake Scarcity
The “Only 1 left!” trick? It’s not real. It’s a tactic to bypass your logic with urgency. Nicole points out how online stores (like Temu) create artificial scarcity to trigger impulse buying, even for low-quality junk.
Planned Obsolescence — Now With Fees
Products are still designed to break, but now they’re also locked behind paywalls that require a subscription. You’re not just buying a product anymore; you’re renting access until it fails.
Surveillance-Based Social Media
Social platforms used to be about connection. Now they’re ad farms. Nicole makes it clear: we’re being sold back our attention, one feed at a time, optimized for manipulation.
Fast Fashion Garbage
She calls out not only Shein and Temu, but also once-respected brands like Levi’s, Uniqlo, and Guess — now all peddling landfill-grade product at inflated prices.
Data Brokers
Possibly the most chilling part: Nicole explains how data brokers sell your personal info and how that can escalate into real-world danger. Her response? Use DeleteMe. (It’s a sponsorship, but an honest one.)
So Why Does Everything Feel Like a Scam?
Because it is.
You’re not paying for value. You’re paying for psychological leverage.
You’re not the customer. You’re the product.
And the trust that once existed between brand and buyer? It’s been liquidated.
Nicole says it best:
“When we no longer have problems companies can solve, they start creating fake problems to sell us the solutions.”
What Can You Do?
Nicole doesn’t just complain. She offers an exit ramp:
Unsubscribe from manipulative brands.
Don’t tip unless you’re getting real service.
Cook at home.
Buy less, but better.
Avoid “buy now, pay later” traps.
And yes, don’t get suckered into buying a Labubu.
Where MAC Comes In
Nicole is speaking from the outside, as an intelligent, pissed-off consumer.
At the Marketing Accountability Council (MAC), we’re working from the inside, trying to fix the industry that helped build this mess.
We believe marketers can do better. We believe you can do better. And we’re giving away the tools to help.
Explore the MACStack —
Free and pay-what-you-want tools for ethical, effective, bullshit-free marketing:
👉 https://macstack.gumroad.com
Nicole called out the problem. We’re here to help deconstruct it and offer something better in its place.
Way too many things do seem like a scam. The flood in Texas this weekend is about the most vivid example of how much damage can be done by one at scale.
Historical analyses show that improved weather warnings can save billions of dollars per event and countless lives. The National Weather Service’s overall economic benefit is estimated at $100 billion annually, about 10 times its previous operating cost. When we have knowledge to forecast and warn impending severe weather events, damage is mitigated, and we have a bulwark against damage cost that allows insurance companies to keep on providing insurance. If the cost to cover claims gets too high, our premiums become unaffordable, or insurance providers cancel coverage altogether.
In this Texas case, local officials said they didn't know so much rain was coming. They said the forecast called for 1x rain and they really got 3x that amount. This means they literally were operating on bad information that cost nearly 100 people their lives.
So not only were the proper warnings not given fast enough, there wasn't enough data collected and analyzed by NWS - due to budget cuts - to properly understand what was coming in the first place. Early estimates put the flood damage at $10B. Hiring 20% more NWS staff - across the country - costs about $50M.
It is estimated that proper forecasting and warnings would have saved $2B in damage. So to save $50M, we ended up costing ourselves $2B more than was necessary, and this is just ONE weather event in one area of one state! If that wasn't bad enough, the Homeland Security Secretary - in charge of FEMA that is suppose to help people recover from such disasters - decided it made more sense to erect a concentration camp for its war on immigrants - than be able to take care of the people harmed by the flood the government's cuts helped create the need for in the first place.
All this is to say Nicole properly points out the scamming going on at the consumer level. But here in the United States of America, we are getting scammed at the highest levels of our government. And it is only going to get way worse.