Spencer Ackerman: "The future is subscription-tiered citizenship, where your access to resources and the freedoms they provide is throttled and woe to those who can't afford them."

See also Our Unpleasant Privatized Reality for more reading on this, including Hamilton Nolan's Everyone Into The Grinder and Tom Junod's classic The Water-Park Scandal and Two Americas in the Raw: Are We a Nation of Line-Cutters, or Are We the Line?

The wildest experience I ever had on this front was during a family trip to NYC in 2016. I was only there for a four day weekend, I had my 10 year old and her friend with me, and we wanted to see the Empire State Building, and it was around $20 to get a ticket that day but you couldn't enter for several hours or predict how long it would take. We had other plans for the evening and then I noticed a $150 option per person that was timed to sunset so we went with the deluxe option (I'd never been inside the ESB and figured it would be worth the splurge).

What we experienced was insane. It was late May and hot in NYC and we saw throngs of people sweltering in an endless queue. But the QR code on my phone got us special wristbands and through the lobby immediately to a waiting elevator that was held for us. Being last in meant we were also first out at the top.

Everyone had to walk into another endless series of queues, while we were told to take the turbo lane due to our wristbands. We jogged past hundreds of people, and at the end were allowed into the best possible viewing area.

From the lobby to standing on top of the building took us maybe ten minutes, and we got to spend another 45min watching the sunset and taking photos of the city in a glorious magic hour light. I googled it afterwards to learn it's a 3-4hr trip if you go the cheap route.

Using that upsold speedrun option totally soured me on the entire business of it. It immediately reminded me of the first time I flew first class and the ticket granted me entry into an upscale airline lounge and I was livid that rich people had a calm, quiet place while everyone else had to suffer yelling people and CNN screens blaring in the concourse. Every airline executive lounge should instead be the blueprint for the whole airport! And I already know it's possible, as Vancouver International airport (not on the US-side) is much like this, an incredible calm but luxurious place to fly out of if you're not headed to the US from YVR.