They Got SUBSCRIPTIONS on Apartment DOORS Now?!

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Money, money, money, money.

[00:00:03]What happened to just needing a key to get into your apartment?

[00:00:06]What happened to just having a key?

[00:00:10]Subscription to open your [ __ ] door? What?

[00:00:17]Bro, what are you talking about, man?

[00:00:19]People are having to pay for a monthly subscription Yep. to open doors. Sounds about right.

[00:00:30]to apartments they already pay rent for.

[00:00:34]I know you [ __ ] lying.

[00:00:37]And you know that price is going to increase.

[00:00:41]Flabbergasted.

[00:00:44]Done.

[00:00:46]I have I am What?

[00:00:57]Hey, so everyone has lost their minds.

[00:00:59]What do you mean by that? Apartment hunting, housing market, renting, whatever it is, you've absolutely lost your minds. So, as I sit here apartment hunting here in Los Angeles, would you believe that I came across this place $2,500 a month.

[00:01:15]Okay, one bedroom.

[00:01:17]No utilities included. You have to pay for your parking. Bare bones, three times the rent, 650 minimum credit, okay? Mhm. I scrolled down to the bottom and I see that in order for you to access your unit that you are paying $2,500 for, okay?

[00:01:37]You must subscribe to a monthly membership to use your key fob.

[00:01:45]Oh, uh-huh.

[00:01:45]>> If you don't, you will not be able to access your unit that you pay $2,500 for.

[00:01:53]Uh-uh.

[00:01:54]What are we doing?

[00:01:57]>> Price gouging. People are tired and it is only going to get worse.

[00:02:01]This is quite literally a scheme that Todd set up for him to come to you with the boot.

[00:02:14]Something that the average American will not just work their way out of. They will not um skip a latte out of.

[00:02:24]Do you understand what I'm saying to you?

[00:02:29]I don't This is What are we doing?

[00:02:32]So y'all, subscriptions have officially gone too far.

[00:02:36]Last week I put up a video regarding subscriptions to cars.

[00:02:43]First it was streaming services.

[00:02:45]Then cars started charging people monthly fees for features already inside the vehicle.

[00:02:52]And now apartments are charging technology fees just to access the building and unlock the door to the apartment you already pay rent for. So on top of all those fees, now you got to pay to get in the door.

[00:03:05]Make it make sense.

[00:03:07]Don't be trying to take all my sense.

[00:03:09]Make it make sense. for apartment searching because we are looking for a new place to stay as well. And one of the properties that we indeed checked out, which was actually at the it was at the top of the list until I started reading the details. So, on one of the properties that we already looked at, they have rental insurance as a miscellaneous requirements, of course that's normal. Um trash service, I don't mind valet trash, whatever, that's water under the bridge. Then I got down to the tech package. So, they manage they manage your cable. Who the heck watches cable anymore? And then they have a smart home technology which is included in every apartment in the the included in every apartment for $110 a month. So, if I don't pay that, I can't access my place.

[00:03:57]Mind you, this property was ranging in between $1,800 to as high as $2,600 a month.

[00:04:05]Excuse me? Right. These These rental properties have all lost their mind. And the thing that gets me is some of these apartment complexes make it mandatory.

[00:04:16]Meaning [snorts] you don't even have the option to say, "No, thank you. I'll just use the regular key."

[00:04:21]Nope. You will download it. You will use the smart lock and you will pay the fee.

[00:04:25]That's exactly how they're thinking. And that's the part that has people frustrated. Because if it was optional, okay, cool. But forcing people into monthly tech charges when rent is already sky-high. We talked about rent prices before. Check out some of my old videos.

[00:04:44]That's why folks are annoyed. I would be so annoyed. I have been here for 4 years now.

[00:04:50]And when I first moved in, we had a fob system for locks, right? Little gray disc that you attach to your keychain and you just slap it up against the little magneticky thing and it unlocks the main door, your door, all those things. Mhm.

[00:05:06]About a year or a year and a half to 2 years ago, we all get an email from our apartment complex that they are doing away with the fob system and instead we are going to be on a phone app lock system. Nope.

[00:05:23]So, fobs are going away. They're going to change out all the locks on every single door and we're all going to be using this phone app moving forward.

[00:05:32]>> even like the fobs. And they instituted this across There's like over 200 apartments in my complex. It's a pretty big complex.

[00:05:42]And by and large, since this was installed, every single resident I talked to, we hate this app system.

[00:05:52]>> Mhm.

[00:05:53]Absolutely hate it because, think about it, um when I first moved in, if I get home and I've got arms full of, you know, grocery bags and I'm by myself, all I have to do is hook my own keys onto my finger and just slap the fob up against the magnetic thing and I can unlock the elevator, I can unlock my front door, no problem, right?

[00:06:14]>> Mhm. Now what I have to do, armful of groceries, is I have to get out my phone, I have to unlock it with my face, I have to go into the app, I have to make sure my Bluetooth is on because it only works if Bluetooth is on, and then I hold it up to the little reader thing on the door or in the elevator. Um it takes on average 3 to 5 seconds for it to register and unlock. Um so when you're in the elevator, it's a real time crunch because that elevator will just start moving regardless of whether or not you've unlocked it, so you might end up shooting past your floor if you couldn't get it unlocked fast enough.

[00:06:56]But mostly, it's just cumbersome, it's a pain in the ass, no one likes, everyone complains about it. Every time you get to the elevator, people like, I hate this system, I hate it so much.

[00:07:08]Also come to realize, um right around the time that they put in this new lock system, they also started a new fee attached to our rent, which is called the technology connect fee.

[00:07:21]And the way they originally talked about it was, we're going to start offering internet as well, um so that you don't have to go with any third-party internet providers, but that's totally optional if you want to opt in.

[00:07:33]A lot of us don't opt in, we use some of the more reliable providers that are around.

[00:07:38]But that technology fee still exists for everybody every single month.

[00:07:43]Because that technology fee pays for the app.

[00:07:47]>> Of course.

[00:07:49]The app to unlock the door.

[00:07:53]That technology fee is $85 a month.

[00:07:58]What?

[00:08:00]Ridiculous.

[00:08:02]We all pay a subscription of $85 a month to unlock doors.

[00:08:12]Mhm.

[00:08:13]$85 a month, almost $100 a month, not to live here, not for your rent, just to get in the door. I know you [ __ ] lying.

[00:08:24]Because the apartment complex, without a vote from its residents, without anything, the property managers decided this is what we're doing now, and we're going to charge you for it. But it'll be great because it's tech. It's high quality, blah blah blah blah blah. It's better than the fob system. Meanwhile, the residents hate it.

[00:08:45]We don't like it. It's not reliable.

[00:08:48]It's a pain in the ass, and we pay almost $100 A MONTH.

[00:08:51]>> WHAT? WHY?

[00:08:54]Just to unlock our [ __ ] doors.

[00:08:58]To get into the homes that we reside in.

[00:09:02]That's not right.

[00:09:03]>> This is capitalism in a nutshell. We're going to create a problem. Everybody so creative.

[00:09:08]>> We're then going to solve said problem that we created, and then we're going to charge you for the solution. Right.

[00:09:17]And when we talk about how people are struggling to just survive, let alone thrive, it's because of this kind of It's because we have moved to this place where we own nothing. Everything is subscription base, even being able to get into your front door is on a subscription that if you don't pay, you don't even get into your own goddamn home. Uh.

[00:09:42]That is 2026 US capitalism in a nutshell.

[00:09:47]Um Hopefully, wherever I go next, I'll just have a key to get in. Right?

[00:09:54]And honestly, I think people are getting tired of subscription culture in general. We talked about cars. I told y'all on that previous video I had to cut out the Netflix. Well, my son did it.

[00:10:06]But yeah, music, TV, cars, cloud storage, oh the cloud storage. I'm a picture person, video person. I am TMZ as they like to call me. So, my cloud storage is outrageous.

[00:10:21]I need to do something about it. I need to do better.

[00:10:25]The doorbells, the security camera, the software updates, the food delivery memberships. Now, mind you, I don't do none of that.

[00:10:33]But now they got apartment doors that you have to subscribe to or pay monthly.

[00:10:40]It's ridiculous. What's next? A subscription to turn your lights on?

[00:10:45]To drink some water?

[00:10:47]To breathe some air?

[00:10:50]Ooh, child.

[00:10:52]And let's talk about something else.

[00:10:54]Technology is great until it stops working.

[00:10:57]Can you imagine you were trying to get into your door and you're hitting this button or you're hitting the key fob and it's not registering and you can't have a key?

[00:11:09]What? What happens if the app crashes?

[00:11:13]My phone dies, the Wi-Fi goes down, the system gets hacked, the company shuts the service down. You just never know. It's It's too much What do they call that?

[00:11:27]Hanging in the balance.

[00:11:29]I just can't imagine. That's a security risk.

[00:11:33]See, a regular key, you never need a update.

[00:11:36]A regular key doesn't need Bluetooth or a password reset or it logs you out randomly.

[00:11:43]Come on.

[00:11:45]And I think this conversation is bigger than just apartments. A lot of people feel financially exhausted right now.

[00:11:53]And I talk about this a lot on my videos. Take a look at a few playlists.

[00:11:57]I'll put it up in the screen somewhere and it'll be down in the description.

[00:12:01]But I talked about groceries being high, gas being high, insurance being high, rent being high, mortgages being high.

[00:12:09]So, every new small monthly fee feels bigger because it's stacked on top of everything else.

[00:12:17]That's why these conversations online are resonating with people. People are tired of feeling like every part of life is being monetized. And that's why I see a lot of comments that say, "What's next? We going to be charging for air?"

[00:12:30]People are tired of feeling like every part of their life is being monetized.

[00:12:35]And for younger generations, especially, it can feel frustrating because ownership already feels far away for so many people. We see a lot of comments of people talking about how baby boomers had it the easiest. And that's because they feel like they were able to purchase a house and not have to work overtime all the time. Groceries were covered. They were one income households and they were able to make it, but not today.

[00:13:03]So, when even basic access to where you live starts feeling like a subscription service, people are going to react to that. This young man was talking about how subscriptions are killing small businesses and making it harder and harder. So, everything's a subscription now. Um a lot of the systems that the fabricators are using, um you can no longer just buy the thing.

[00:13:27]You can no longer buy the tool or the equipment or the program. You have to pay the a subscription for it every month. Back in the day when I used to [ __ ] about the fact that when my parents were young adults, you bought a TV and you got the TV out of the airwaves.

[00:13:46]When I was a teenager, we got cable. Now you're paying every month for something that you didn't used to pay for before.

[00:13:54]And it is only compounded since then so that now my children who are young adults, everything is paid for every month all the time in perpetuity forever and ever amen.

[00:14:07]You don't just buy a TV. You don't just buy a phone.

[00:14:10]Everything requires constant maintenance payments or usage payments.

[00:14:18]Subscriptions. And another thing, sometimes simpler really was better. I know technology is supposed to make things modern and easier, but not everything needs to be turned into an app.

[00:14:32]Remember that video before this one?

[00:14:35]There's an app for that. I might add that in here, too. There's an app for that. Sometimes people just want affordability. People are already paying rent, utilities, some people got parking fees, pet fees, internet, renter's insurance, trash fees, convenience fee convenience to who?

[00:14:58]Convenience so I could pay my rent over the phone or on the computer, those additional fees. And now we got to pay a technology fee, too.

[00:15:08]Cut it out.

[00:15:10]Make it simple.

[00:15:12]Make it reliable.

[00:15:14]And to have that peace of mind. Not I need another login screen and I need to figure out a password for this and a username for that.

[00:15:27]But I want to know what you think.

[00:15:29]Would you pay a monthly technology fee for your apartment door access?

[00:15:35]Do you like smart apartments? Or do you think subscription culture is getting out of hand?

[00:15:42]Let me know in the comments.

[00:15:44]And if you enjoyed this video, don't forget to like, subscribe, hype me up, and I'll see you in the next one.

[00:15:51]>> [music] [music]