1 big thing: Booming business of eternal youth
Category: Mental Health and Wellness
Via: hallux • 7 months ago • 4 commentsBy: Mike Allen - Axios
Consumers, especially the rich, are spending big on the colossal, growing longevity industry — spas, food subscriptions, gym memberships and pills, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.
📈 Why it matters: The wellness industry is worth nearly $500 billion in the U.S. and $2 trillion globally, McKinsey says . But there's a growing gap between what's available to wealthy consumers and everyone else.
- Many new offerings come at sky-high prices.
State of play: The wellness market is doubling down on rich customers with exclusive, luxury, hyper-personalized offerings, according to the Global Wellness Institute , an industry research group.
- Think invite-only Pilates classes at $75 a session, $200,000 facelifts — and elite clubs charging thousands in monthly fees for saunas and ice baths.
- Equinox, the high-end gym chain, just rolled out a $40,000-per-year longevity add-on . Customers will get access to individually tailored training and nutrition plans, sleep coaching and more. There's a waitlist .
- Costs are even increasing on the cheaper end: Planet Fitness announced its first membership price hike in 26 years earlier this month.
Zoom in: Then there's an even higher tier — Silicon Valley billionaires chasing the fountain of youth .
- Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Bryan Johnson famously spends $2 million a year on health and longevity treatments, including weekly acid peels and blood transfusions from his teenage son.
- He eats a strict vegan diet , does daily meticulously planned workouts and takes near-constant blood, stool and urine tests to monitor his health, Bloomberg's Ashlee Vance reports .
- Tech titans Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have all invested millions in anti-aging startups.
🔮 What's next: As more people have access to personalized fitness data through phones, watches and rings , look for tailored workouts and diets to gain popularity.
$500 billion? Meh, I've spent that much on Uisce beatha and Uimen ... I'll never be old enough to be young.
The money some people throw away
There are two certanties in life and that's getting old and death
But I though that's The American Way, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the richest get the most benefits from life while the poor service them.
"From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs" is looking a lot more attractive to me than "The American Way".