Stuff That Used to Be Free Until Someone Ruined It
Remember when water came from a tap, luggage flew for free, and you didn’t need a subscription to toast bread? Somewhere along the way, the world decided to put a price tag on the ordinary. Things that were once basic parts of everyday life slowly turned into “premium features.” From airline seats to public spaces, here’s a look at stuff that used to be free, until someone ruined it.
#10: Checked Baggage on Airlines:
Let’s get right into it. Number 10, checked baggage on airlines. For decades, checking your bag on flights was completely free. Then 2008 hit, and American Airlines was in trouble. Fuel prices were through the roof. The economy was tanking, and they were bleeding money. That’s when they had an idea. They decided to charge for something that had been free since commercial aviation began. On June 15th, 2008, American Airlines became the first major airline to charge for checked bags.
The initial fee was $15. People were outraged. It was like someone had started charging for napkins at restaurants. But other airlines didn’t see public outrage. They saw profit. Within months, nearly every major airlines started charging for bags. Now, airlines make more money from baggage fees than some small countries make in a year.
In 2019, US airlines collected over $5 billion just from baggage fees. That original $15 fee has now doubled to $30 to $35. That’s a 133% increase, far outpacing inflation. And with billions in profit, these fees aren’t going anywhere.
#9: Bottled Water:
Imagine paying for something that literally falls from the sky. That’s exactly what happened with bottled water. Back in the day, water was just water. You’d turn on your tap and out it came.
But in the 1970s, some marketing geniuses looked at this free liquid and thought they could put it in a plastic bottle and charge people for it. The real game changer was a new plastic called PET, which was light, cheap, and didn’t make your water taste like you were licking a metal pole. Companies started making people think their tap water was basically toilet water with a fancy pipe system. They’d run ads showing pristine mountain springs and use words like pure and natural.
Meanwhile, many bottled water companies were just filling bottles with filtered tap water. They were selling you the same water you could get at home, just with a prettier bottle and a 2,000% markup. Some bottled water brands actually got caught. Aquafina had to admit that their water came from public water sources. But by then, people were already hooked.
Today, the bottled water industry is worth over $200 billion. All because someone convinced us that the free stuff coming out of our taps wasn’t good enough. In the US, tap water is actually more strictly regulated by the EPA than bottled water is by the FDA.
#8: Parking Your Car:
In 1934, Oklahoma City the streets were absolute chaos. People were leaving their cars wherever they wanted for as long as they wanted. Some folks would park in the same spot all day, treating public streets like their personal garage. Enter Carl Maji, a newspaperman who was put in charge of fixing Oklahoma City’s parking problem. The city’s business owners were losing money because customers couldn’t find parking.
So Carl invented something called the Parkco Meter. It looked like a robot lollipop stuck in the ground. Put in a nickel, get an hour of parking. The first meters were installed on July 16th, 1935. And people were furious. They called it an illegal tax, a scam, and tried to destroy the meters. But then something unexpected happened. Suddenly, there were parking spots available downtown.
Businesses started making more money because customers could actually park and shop. The city was making money from the meters and fines. It worked so well that other cities started copying the idea. Within a few years, these meters were everywhere. Carl’s company ended up making millions by convincing everyone to pay for something that used to be free.
#7: YouTube Premium (Removing Ads):
Back in 2005, YouTube promised to let anyone broadcast themselves for free. The early days had small banner ads at the bottom of videos. They were like that friend who reminds you they exist without being too annoying.
But YouTube started getting hungry. First, they added pre-roll ads, then mid-roll ads, then post-roll ads. Watching a 10-minute video became an obstacle course of commercials.
Then, YouTube introduced their solution. Pay up to $13.99 a month to remove the ads. It’s like creating a problem and then selling the solution. Just like a park releasing mosquitoes to sell mosquito repellent, the strategy worked perfectly. By 2023, YouTube Premium had over 80 million subscribers paying to remove something that wasn’t there originally.
But even after paying for Premium, you still see ads. They’re just called integrated sponsorships. Now, when your favorite creator suddenly starts talking about a VPN or a mobile game, you’re not paying to remove all ads. You’re just paying to remove YouTube’s ads, making the service work more like it used to for free.
#6: The Rest of Your Video Game:
The year is 2006, and Bethesda released something that would change gaming forever. Horse armor DLC for The Elder Scrolls game. For $2.50, you could buy some fancy armor for your virtual horse. That’s it. Just some shiny pixels for your digital pony.
Before this, when you bought a game, you got the whole game. But this horse armor was already in the game files. They just locked it behind a paywall, and people actually bought it. Bethesda made so much money from this horse costume that other companies took notice.
Suddenly, everything became downloadable content. Want the true ending to your game? That’ll be $15. Want to use that cool sword you see in the trailer? $9.99, please. Games started shipping with less content. They’d cut out features that used to be standard, then sell them back as DLC. Fighting games that once came with all characters now lock half behind a paywall.
This created whales in the gaming industry. People who spend thousands on microtransactions, and companies started designing games to cater to them.
#5: Air for Your Tires
Back in the day, every gas station had a free air hose just sitting there waiting for you to use it. You pull up, fill your tires, and drive away. No quarters needed.
But something changed in the late 1970s. Someone looked at these air hoses and thought charging people for air would be profitable. And so the coin-operated air machine was born. The companies claimed they needed the money for maintenance costs.
Meanwhile, California passed a law saying stations had to provide free air if you bought gas. But the stations found a loophole. They made the machines coin-operated and put up tiny signs saying, “Ask attendant for free air.” Good luck finding an attendant who knows about this.
These machines now charge about $1.50 for a few minutes of air. That’s enough time to fill maybe two tires if you’re as fast as a NASCAR pit crew. Some stations even have credit card readers on their air machines now. Because nothing says modern convenience like paying to inflate your tires with air that’s literally everywhere around us.
#4: Resort Fees:
Resort fees are one of the biggest scams in the hotel industry. You find an amazing deal, $99 a night in Vegas. But when you get to the hotel, that $99 room is actually $159.
Back in the ’90s, some genius at a Las Vegas hotel had an idea. Instead of including everything in the room price like hotels had done forever, they would split it up. That way, they could advertise a lower price and then surprise guests with extra charges later. It’s like going to a restaurant that advertises $5 burgers, but when you get there, they charge you a dining fee for using their chairs and plates.
These resort fees supposedly cover things like the pool that was always free before the gym you’ll probably never use, and in-room safe usage. They’re charging you to keep your stuff safe in their own hotel. These fees are mandatory.
So, even if you never use any of the amenities, you’re still paying for them. In 2012, one hotel in Las Vegas was charging a resort fee higher than the actual room rate. Hotels love these fees because they often don’t have to pay travel agent commissions on them, and they can be taxed differently than room rates.
#3: Online News Paywalls:
The Wall Street Journal changed the internet forever in 1996. While everyone was enjoying free online news, WSJ decided to put their articles behind a digital toll booth. The internet was built on free information sharing. It was like a giant library where everyone could read whatever they wanted. But WSJ decided to charge for access, and others quickly followed. The New York Times, the Washington Post.
Soon, every news site had a paywall. These paywalls come in different forms. Some are hard paywalls where you can’t read anything without paying. Others are soft paywalls that let you read a few articles before demanding payment. News sites give you just enough free content to get you hooked before hitting you with the subscription prompt.
But this created an unexpected problem. While legitimate news sits behind paywalls, fake news and misinformation remain completely free and spread rapidly across the internet.
So while real journalism costs money, false information flows freely. The same newspapers that restrict access still complain about people being uninformed after turning news into a luxury item.
#2: ATM Surcharges:
In the early 1990s, ATMs were mostly free. They were owned by banks and placed everywhere as a service for their customers. It wasn’t meant to be a profit center.
Then, independent ATM operators came up with an idea. They started putting ATMs in convenient spots like stores and bars, but with a catch. They charged people for using them. The banks noticed this and realized they could also charge people for accessing their own money.
And just like that, ATM fees became the new normal. Today, the average ATM fee is over $4.70 per transaction. That means if you take out $20, you’re paying almost 25% in fees just to access your own cash. Some ATMs in places like Las Vegas even charge up to $10 per transaction. These fees make banks billions every year.
We now live in a world where we pay money to get our own money. It’s exactly like paying rent to live in your own house. And it all started because one company decided that convenience should come with a price tag.
#1: The Commercial Greeting Card:
It’s 1843, and Sir Henry Cole, a busy Victorian gentleman with too many friends, has a problem. He needs to write personal Christmas letters to everyone he knows. Back then, not sending a handwritten letter was basically like unfriending someone on Facebook, but worse.
Looking at his massive pile of letters to write, Henry comes up with an idea. He commissions an artist to design 1,000 cards with a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you, and fancy artwork. He used what he needed and then realized he had extras lying around. So, he decided to sell them for one shilling each.
Before this, people just wrote nice letters to each other for free. It was personal, meaningful, and didn’t cost anything. But once people realized they could buy pre-made cards instead of writing letters, the greeting card industry exploded.
By 1880, companies were printing millions of cards a year. Today, it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry. We’re spending billions on pieces of paper with pre-written messages because one guy was too busy to write his Christmas letters. Now we even pay extra for cards that look handwritten or personal. We’re paying more for cards that fake the authenticity we used to have for free.
Conclusion
It’s wild how easily we’ve accepted paying for things that used to cost nothing. From airlines and hotels to news and even air itself, we’ve been slowly convinced that convenience deserves a price tag. What started as clever business ideas turned into everyday norms. Maybe it’s time we stop and ask, are we paying for progress, or just getting charged for habits we forgot were once free?
FAQs:
1. Why did airlines start charging for baggage?
To recover losses during the 2008 financial crisis and rising fuel costs.
2. Is bottled water really safer than tap water?
Not necessarily, tap water is often held to stricter safety standards.
3. Why do hotels charge resort fees?
To advertise lower room rates while adding hidden mandatory charges.
4. What’s the deal with YouTube Premium?
It charges users to remove ads that didn’t exist in the platform’s early days.
5. Why do we pay for air at gas stations?
Companies monetized air machines under the excuse of maintenance costs.
6. How did greeting cards become a business?
A man selling his extra Christmas cards in 1843 accidentally created the industry.