In the new “‘experience economy’”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7-2043534,00.html we pay to do things, not have things. No epiphany here. Many people buy physical things as a substitute for emotional and spiritual longing or emptiness. This is the key component in advertising: insinuating a desire or need for something where none actually exists.
Notice that most print and television commercials are more about the _feeling_ of owning or consuming something (the feeling of safety or power in a luxury car, the hot chick milieu of a beer commercial) rather than the product itself. That people are beginning to recognize consumption for what it is, buying for experience is just a more overt manifestation of what has always occurred.
That being said, if the opportunity were available, I wouldn’t be averse to paying for a “mind fuck to Mars”:http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0100802/.
