The Exhaustion Economy

𝑰𝒏 𝑻𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚'𝒔 𝑾𝒂𝒗𝒆:

🔒 When presence becomes labor and identity gets rented by the month
💔 Why trust is now venture capital that never regenerates
📵 How unverifiable experiences justify premium pricing
⚡ The productivity ceiling we already hit - and what comes after

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒉𝒊𝒇𝒕

We're not building the future. We're managing exhaustion.

Look closely at what's being sold: trust spent before products ship, experiences that can't be verified, tools that promise breakthroughs while delivering busy work.

These aren't innovations. They're coping mechanisms rebranded as progress.

I'm calling this big shift for 2026 "The Exhaustion Economy" - when cultural fatigue becomes more profitable than actual advancement.

𝑾𝒉𝒚 𝑵𝒐𝒘?

Three forces converged to make coping profitable:

1. Infinite choice used to signal abundance. Now it signals exhaustion. Consumers aren't looking for more options - they're looking for someone to decide for them. Subscription boxes, algorithmic curation, pre-selected meal plans all solve the same issue: thinking became work people will pay to avoid.

2. Performance economics replaced product economics. Algorithms reward emotional engagement over functional value. A founder crying on TikTok about their struggling business drives more sales than product specs. Story converts faster than quality.

3. Cultural exhaustion made "good enough" premium. We stopped pretending incremental gains equal breakthroughs. Instead of admitting limits, we rebrand settling as intentionality or minimalism. We’re nearing the optimization ceiling.

𝑬𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒚 𝑺𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒔

Presence as Performative Labor
Yondr locks your phone in a magnetic pouch at concerts. Ghost, Bruno Mars, Jack White all use them. Broadway's "Liberation" requires them. You physically attend but can't document it. No streaming, no proof, no Instagram story.

The shift: presence used to be leisure. Now it's a prerequisite. You supply the energy and social proof, they keep the credit and the content rights. The work of showing up without the reward of proving it.

Subscription Identities
November Project is a free running club requiring attendance three times a week at 6:30am. No fees, but showing up IS the currency.

The shift: money isn't the only subscription model - consistency is. Identity became something you rent through attendance, not build through membership. Cancel your streak, lose access to the tribe entirely.

The Optimization Ceiling
Cursor AI promised massive developer productivity gains. A recent trial found experienced developers took nearly 20% longer solving tasks with AI tools. Cursor's own warning: "vibe coding" creates "shaky foundations."

The shift: we hit the productivity ceiling, not breakthrough. Tools deliver marginal gains at best, requiring more verification than they save. We're not getting faster - we're getting busier performing optimization.

The Trust Recession
Prime by Logan Paul & KSI launched with tens of millions of combined followers. Hit over a billion in valuation selling sports drinks to teens. Now facing lawsuits over lead and heavy metals in products.

The shift: they spent audience goodwill like it was venture capital - pulled forward all future trust and burned it on day one. The relationship was extractive before the first bottle shipped.

Opting Out of Discernment
The Farmer's Dog - answer seven questions, get one meal plan. No SKU selection, no ingredient comparison. Over a billion in revenue, profitable. Customers pay monthly to never think about dog food again.

The shift: discernment became cognitive debt expensive enough to outsource. When comparing dozens of PetSmart options feels like work, "good enough" becomes the premium offering.

Anti-Evidence Experiences
Meow Wolf installations in Santa Fe, Vegas, Denver, Grapevine, Houston. Premium tickets for experiences designed to be "un-Instagrammable." Too complex and interactive to reduce to photos.

The shift: when you can't verify if something was worth it, myth survives without accountability. No proof means no fact-checking. Premium pricing for what can't be documented or shared.

𝑭𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝑰𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔

• Proof becomes premium, privacy becomes default. As brands monetize presence without documentation, actually having evidence you were there gains value. The irony, we'll pay extra to prove we did things we used to photograph for free.

• Identity standardizes across platforms. Running clubs, fitness memberships, creator communities - they all adopt the same model: show up or get cut. The tribe you rent this month looks identical to the one you'll rent next year, just with different branding.

• Trust extraction becomes the business model. Founders will continue launching products on parasocial capital, not product-market fit. The formula works: build audience, sell dream, ship product, fight lawsuits later. By the time trust debt comes due, they've already cashed out. We'll see more billion-dollar brands built on borrowed belief that never gets repaid.

The ceiling will become obvious across categories. Instead of admitting limits, expect aggressive rebranding: "optimization" becomes "intentionality," "settling" becomes "essentialism," "exhaustion" becomes "strategic simplicity."

The performance of progress without actual advancement will become apparent.

𝑸𝒖𝒊𝒄𝒌 𝑻𝒊𝒑𝒔

🔍 Map your coping spend. Open your bank statement. Highlight subscriptions that remove decisions - meal kits, styling services, etc. Calculate the monthly cost of not thinking. If it's over a few hundred dollars, decide if it’s strategic to pay premium to opt out of discernment.

⚠️ Track front-loaded trust. List brands you follow on social before they shipped products. How many actually delivered? Which ones cashed out your goodwill on hype then disappeared? Stop rewarding announcements. Start rewarding execution. Only support founders who ship, not founders who perform.

💰 Test your optimization ceiling. Pick one productivity tool promising major gains. Track actual time saved over thirty days. Most deliver marginal improvement while adding verification overhead. If you're not seeing real gains, you've hit the ceiling. Stop stacking tools. Start executing without them.

𝑵𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝑾𝒂𝒗𝒆

Quick life update: I accepted a new role as the Energy Marketing Director for North America on the Jordan Brand Team at Nike! I’ll be moving to Portland in the next couple weeks, so I might not publish for a bit as I get settled.

I might be shifting this newsletter to bi-weekly (or monthly) with deeper coverage on topics instead of weekly. I'll keep you posted as I refine the format.

Stay wavey and I’ll see you in 2026.

Happy New Year,
Haley