No Jobs, No Money, No...Games?

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]AI is going to take our jobs and we're going to have no money left, but we're still going to buy video games. Or will we? We're going to talk all about all that and more, but first, coffee. Too many news stories today, but one of the interesting ones was that there's definitely hope for the next generation of students because I saw this video where all of the college graduates booed, and this was at separate graduations. They all booed the speakers who were trying to convince them that AI is the future. Young people are not stupid. They understand that AI is important, but they also realize that the way it's being used at the moment is just to replace them and that they're entering into a job market where it's going to be very difficult to find a job, let alone keep a job if you already have one. So, the question that led me on to after that was if everyone is going to be losing their jobs, that means you're going to be unemployed or you're going to be working in between jobs. You're going to have less disposable income for video games. So the question is, if you have less money for video games, can we really afford this whole, okay, video games are still like, you know, $70, like $60 or they're going up to $70 or then there's going to be subscriptions. There's going to be the Xbox subscription and the PlayStation subscription and who knows like, you know, PCbased subscriptions and they're all going up in price. How can things keep continuing at this rate if the amount of money that we have to spend is going to decrease and the amount of money that it's going to cost is going to increase? How is I just the math is not mathing. Just put 9 g.

[00:01:31]Should we make an 11 g coffee? Let's go wild. The only reason I can actually go wild with the amount of beanage that I put into this coffee is because I've moved to budget beans. That's what's happened in Japan and probably what's happening to you as well. the cost of living. It was a crisis and now it's just normal. I've moved on. I've moved back to sort of budget beans because it's just too expensive for me to buy expensive beans. The price of everything is just increasing everywhere. And if it's not increasing, the quality or the amount that you receive is decreasing.

[00:02:03]Uh but that's another topic where we can just talk about the economy of living in Japan. What we really want to talk about is if you have no money left, can you still afford to buy video games? Let's grind. Just in today's news, there was more news about waves and waves of these layoffs happening at Facebook, at Meta.

[00:02:22]If 15,000 people alone this year are going to be let, you know, laid off from Meta this year, what jobs are those people going to do? Like, are they all going to spend a year training to do like a like a nursing qualification? Are they all going to move into retail? Are they all going to become influencers?

[00:02:40]which is another discussion I'd like to talk about because it's like when we're all influencers then who are we going to watch? I imagine that most people they either like their job or dislike their job but don't love it so much that if they had no money, if the money coming in wasn't enough, I don't think they would continue doing it. People work these jobs that they kind of like or maybe kind of don't like and then they come home and they they kind of revenge game or they revenge spend money on mostly online shopping. And the reason they can do this is because they have a disposable income. The demand for games relies on the fact that we have jobs and disposable income. But let's say that this whole AI apocalypse continues to happen and everyone does lose their jobs. And let's say that they find it hard to find new jobs because where do 8,000 where do 15,000 jobs where do they where do they come from? Are there is there really that much demand in in retail and you know working in restaurants or in the gig economy? Are there really that many open jobs that all these highly skilled professionals are going to be able to get the job or even want to do? I'm curious. I expect it's going to end up in a large amount of unemployment. Sorry, I forgot to turn the hot water on again. Now, I made a tweet about this. I think it was like a year or two, maybe it was like two years ago. I didn't get a satisfying answer, but the question was, when we've all lost our jobs to AI, where is the money going to come from to buy all these things that they're selling to us? I think the assumption in these companies minds is that if we just fire everyone, then we save all the money paying their wages and that all becomes profit. I think they're assuming that the demand for their product is going to still be high. If you fire all those people and actually in general just people have less money to spend because you know having a job is no longer a thing or it's not like a normal thing that everyone just does. Do they realize that maybe the demand for the what they're selling us is just going to to decrease?

[00:04:46]The question that really came up in my mind is that if we don't actually have jobs, then when we get home, are we even really going to feel like we need to revenge game? Will the demand for gaming actually decrease? Or is it the opposite actually? Will maybe the game the demand for gaming massively increase? What we do know is that even if the demand for gaming increases because we're all really anxious and stressed because we can't find jobs, we can barely make ends meet, we have no money, we certainly won't be buying these games because the money, where would the money, where would the money come from?

[00:05:24]One thing I do want to say here at the start is that I'm not against AI. This is not like an anti- AI video. like AI is kind of maybe the impetus for all of these mass layoffs. So maybe AI is to blame at the moment for some of these things. But I actually genuin generally don't think that AI is the problem. And also I think AI is here to stay. We do need to be a little bit more realistic about what we can expect AI to actually accomplish for us. But the problem at the moment isn't AI. the the problem at the moment is the way that AI is being used. And when it's being shown to people like this, the way that it's been shown to them at the moment, it just looks like it's here to replace people.

[00:06:12]Like obviously people need money and no one is telling them what's going to happen after AI takes their job. if it were explained differently, like don't worry, you're going to get laid off, but that's going to give you more free time to spend on things that actually matter to you, jobs that are available and will pay you enough money to, you know, feed yourself and and your loved ones. But it's not being explained like that. It's just like, well, the world's going to be better because I'm a CEO. I'm gonna have more money, which is great for me, and you're not going to have a job. But it doesn't really matter because AI is going to do it better than you anyway.

[00:06:51]So really, I should be doing it instead of you. If it were explained differently, if there were if there actually is a game plan, and I actually don't know if there is a game plan at all. If there is a game plan for everyone to go on to do more productive things that I don't know, save humanity, maybe every single person on Earth will get a nursing qualification and will have the best care in history. If if it were explained this way, then okay, I might be a little bit more on board. But the issue, as you can see, isn't the technology itself. It's just well, maybe it is partly the technology. I think it's the way that CEOs are using it as a way to replace people. And then there's also the theory, which might well be true, that uh these mass layoffs are not actually to get rid of people. is just to get rid of expensive salaried people in the west and they're just going to find countries where it's cheaper to just replace them. So it's like you're being replaced by AI. Actually, you're not being replaced by AI. You're being replaced by, you know, lower cost labor from other countries. I don't know if that's fully true. I'm sure there's some truth to it, but the issue still remains that at the moment it's not clear what the game plan is for all these people who are going to be out of work. And I I just can't really conceive of it. Maybe I'm just maybe because I'm not a careers adviser and I I'm not in the job. I'm not in HR. I I don't actually understand what it is expected that these people are supposed to do after they get laid off from their jobs because it's not going to just be meta. It's going to be like every possible tech company that thinks that they can replace people with with AI. So, I guess multiple scenarios could happen here. Maybe it just doesn't work out and they end up having to hire people back and then, you know, everyone still has a job. But let's say it does work out. Let's say that AI continues to to work for these companies and they can sell big $80, $90, $120 video games and subscriptions that cost you, you know, $150 uh a year, maybe more, you know, cuz every year the price just goes up, right? Remember market conditions. Oh no, the market conditions are so hard.

[00:09:04]we're going to have to charge you more money for this thing that uh essentially is just a server that lets you download something from us, which is basically a copy paste operation. So, it's not costing them a whole lot more than just owning hard drives. So, I mean, I'm not 100% sure about that. Not in this particular video at least. I do want to know what they expect us to do when we don't have money. like do they understand that probably the demand for games will just decrease. Not because people just don't like games anymore.

[00:09:37]It's because they need to spend the money on other things and maybe they'll barely able be maybe they'll be so completely unemployed that let's say that universal basic income even becomes a thing. Will it be enough money for people to spend the way that they currently spend?

[00:09:55]Because my theory is that the way that people spend money at the moment is more based on the fact that they're anxious and stressed from being overworked. And that's why they spend money on gaming.

[00:10:09]Not not obviously a lot of people would still buy games even if they weren't stressed and anxious, but I think a lot of money that comes from the gaming industry comes from people feeling like their whole lives gets stolen from them at work. that when they finally get home and they have like a couple hours at most free in an evening, they're going to spend it kind of revenge gaming or revenge buying stuff online using on through online shopping so that it can like get a little bit back. I I kind of do the same thing to myself and I I mean I it's this is difficult for me to fix, but like in the evening it gets to 11:00 p.m. and I go I'm actually kind of tired. I could go to sleep, but I don't.

[00:10:48]I fight sleep and I continue searching for things to do or like to ways to be productive and I end up up until 1:00 a.m. doom scrolling or doing stuff that I didn't actually intentionally choose to do just because I'm I'm trying to like get back. I'm like all the all the life force that was stolen from me just doing jobs and odds and ends for people during the day for money now like the evening is my time to get it all back.

[00:11:15]But I'm not stealing from the people who took it from me. I'm stealing from myself, from my future self. And then the next day I I feel like my energy was stolen from me and it was stolen by me the previous evening. Okay, coffee time.

[00:11:32]That's very average. Tastes like a blend, like an average of all the things at once. A bit like AI. From what I've seen so far, wages in Japan, not just like me, but other people as well, it doesn't seem to me that uh wages are going up anytime soon. And famously, honestly, in Japan, wages has wages have always been very, very moderate. The thing is, Japan as a country has been a very easy place to live on a moderate income. That's just the kind of country that it is, just the culture in Japan.

[00:12:04]Although yes, there are definitely whales and people who spend insane amounts of money on video games or anime merchandise or comic related things, that's not actually like the norm. Like most Japanese people I meet are extremely level-headed people. They buy things, they use them for as long as they can. They keep them in really good condition, and when they sell them, they still feel like they're new because they kept them in in such good condition. But now that the cost has been increasing, it's actually like it feels like wages have been decreasing. It's like everyone is poor when actually everyone was kind of doing all right before. I don't think this is an issue that's unique to Japan though. I think this is probably happening all over the world. Definitely cost of living crisis was an issue in Europe. I'm not as familiar with the situation in America, but I assume that it is quite it is a problem and also with tariffs, but there is a beacon of hope in all of this. I have been in situations in my life where I've had less money coming in. I'm fortunate that I can say I have never been poor. Like even if I've had no money coming in, I have family and I have friends and I have people that can support me. I don't think it's fair to say that I've ever really been poor. But when I've had less money coming in, just like mentally, that has had a positive effect on the way that I spend money. And also, as you guys know, I'm spending more time on the YouTube channel this year. Not 100%, but I'm spending a lot more time on YouTube this year. And as a result, taking pay cuts in other areas in my life. The immediate knock-on effect of that was that I decided to spend less on buying things. When I had money coming in, even though it wasn't a lot of money, whatever money I did have coming in, I would want to spend it on stuff. And I call this revenge consumerism. It's like even though I don't have a lot of money coming in, it annoys me that I had to spend most of my day, most of my living day that this is life. What you do from like 9 till 5, well 9 till like basically 6 in Japan, that is your life.

[00:14:10]It's not like, oh, it doesn't take that much time. It takes like 8 and a half to 9 hours of your day every day, not including commuting to work. And then you really don't have that much time in the evening to be doing other things.

[00:14:21]Especially if you become a parent and you have kids, there's a lot of other stuff to do. I would spend more than was coming in. And it's because, you know, I'm on YouTube watching reviews of stuff. I'm reading websites. I'm seeing other people using certain things. You know, they've got cameras. They've got controllers. They've got video games.

[00:14:41]There was nothing stopping me from buying it because money was coming in. I could buy stuff without actually like running into a complete debt issue. And that's the sweet spot where they have most people. They have money coming in, not a lot of it, but enough that people feel that they can spend money on stuff and not actually go completely into debt. Though, let's be fair, a lot of people are also going into debt. What's going to happen when the balance changes that they've got like almost no money coming in? Are they still going to live this life where they have PlayStation Plus, Xbox cloud gaming or whatever it's called, Nintendo Switch Online, buying Nintendo games at, you know, from scalpers, so it's more expensive than they're supposed to be, like the console, uh, and then also buying, you know, Nintendo Switch games, which are all like $10 more than they used to.

[00:15:32]It's very easy to end up in a situation where before you paid maybe $50 to $60 for maybe two or three subscriptions.

[00:15:42]You know, like 10 years ago, that's kind of how it felt. It's like I might have Netflix and I don't know, I might have Spotify. Like those are my subscriptions, but like now you need a subscription so that you can have iCloud to like back up your data. You've also got a subscription to Google so that you can if you use AI, you can use that or even just the data for your Google Drive. But then again, like I said, PlayStation Plus, Xbox cloud gaming in addition to the games that you're also buying separately. It's very easy to end up in a situation where you're spending $450, maybe $600 per year on subscriptions. Now, think about how much money you make per year, how much you have to spend on rent. And it's like, can you actually afford it?

[00:16:24]Actually, maybe you can't. And now imagine that the income's not even there. Now, can you now can you afford it? It's like you were already in debt.

[00:16:32]Now you're just more in debt. I understand that companies want to make more profit and that by firing people or bringing in cheaper labor, that's one way to do it. But who are the people buying these games? When people don't have any money coming in, they don't spend money on gaming. If anything, they're just going to find ways to pirate it. And as far as I can tell, piracy never actually disappeared. Like, people are still able to do it. Digital distribution made it easy enough that people would just choose to pay for the game because it was easier than pirating it. But when people are shoved into a corner like a rat, I suppose this is probably not a very good analogy, but when people are shoved into a corner with not very much income, I'm just assuming that the demand for these products is also going to decrease.

[00:17:22]Maybe that's not where the money comes from anyway. Like with selling games, like a lot of the companies out there, really the money is probably not in selling the game. It's selling your data. Like if they can get you to log into a product every single day to get your free bonus items, you know, they've got your attention at least once every single day. That's more attention than I give to most of my friends. I don't check in with any of my friends like one time every single day. So like certain games have more hold over a person than their actual interpersonal relationships. And so is that the game plan? is if people don't have money to actually buy games, our company's just going to make money from selling your data on the free games cuz those are the only games that people will eventually be able to afford. And as a result, they're still kind of losing. It's like, okay, now I'm not losing actual money, but now I'm just losing any kind of independence of my mind because as a result of having your attention and having your data being sold, I remember this this concept. It really blew my mind when I heard about it. It was like technological feudalism. But it's not just that you want something and then it's being advertised to you and then you buy it. It's more like before you even realize that you want something.

[00:18:39]It's you discover that actually that idea was inceptioned into your brain.

[00:18:43]You know, they seeded that idea before you even realized it. So you thought it was your idea. Uh that's a whole discussion that we can have on a separate discuss on a separate video.

[00:18:53]Listen, really all I want to say about the topic is that I I get it that companies want to make more money, but if they fire everyone and no one has any money, who are they expecting to buy these games? And from my own experience, when I've had less money coming in, my life generally generally speaking gets better or I I enter a I enter a period of my life where I just exponentially improve as a person because I spend all my time doing things that improve skills or making use of the things that I already own. I have a steam backlog.

[00:19:29]That's a luxury, right? That's a luxury that I can afford to have if I have money coming in. But if I have no money coming in, suddenly I start eating at my backlog. I'm like, these are games that I already own, I'm going to try playing them. And that doesn't really benefit big companies, right? Like, they're not going to benefit from me actually playing through my backlog because now I'm playing games that I'm I'm not spending any new money on games. So, I'm going to end on this, a question to you.

[00:19:56]If you had less money coming in, let's go all the way. Let's say that you're unemployed.

[00:20:02]Are you still thinking about buying video games or has your attention shifted elsewhere? It feels like it has become more of an exercise in extracting as much money out of people as possible.

[00:20:14]And definitely mobile gaming is partly the culprit for this, not the only culprit, but from what I've experienced personally, when I have less money coming in, I don't turn to gaming as much as I did. And I'm just interested, do you think that demand for gaming might actually decrease? Not saying that people are just going to turn away from gaming entirely, but definitely are people going to realize that maybe they don't need to revenge game and revenge revenge shop online as much as they did uh when they actually don't have their lives being zapped out of them every day at a job because AI took their jobs. I don't know. I'm just I'm really very curious to see what you guys think about this. Hopefully I'm wrong. Let me know what you guys think in the comments section below. As always, hope you've enjoyed this episode of While I'm Making Coffee. You're probably curious about what's on the back of this cup. It's just a this this cup as well is from a 100 yen shop. So, this costs the equivalent of about like 60 cents. Wages being what they are in Japan. Like, it does not feel like spending 50 cents on a cup. It felt like more. Anyway, rabbit on the back of this cup. Look forward to more episodes like this where I share other malformed, not fully formed opinions with you while drinking coffee and making coffee. I'll see you all real real soon.