The Business of Treating Pets like Children - Millennials Decoded | Sidebean

0:00College football is back. So, Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oho, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwink up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security and paskeys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. PayPal Fitness Water.

1:01With Gatorade Electrolites, Zero Sugar, and Vitamins, PayPal hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolites. Here's a personal confession. A couple years ago, my daughter comes to me and my partner with... with an awkward question. And this of course wasn't even a debate for us. We didn't want more kids. We couldn't afford more kids, but how do we explain this to a three-year-old? I mean, she was three of that. And then our solution was really simple. Our solution's called Uma. And it turns out that by US standards, my family is an exception, because the new norm is that families have pets instead of kids. You look at their cats, dogs, more like members. Americans are spending more and more on their pets. You'll first... A number of dogs and cats could increase faster than the human population. This is the percentage of US households with kids. And this is the percentage of US households with pets. My golden retriever, filled TikTok feed and the pet that damn dogs subreddit is...

2:05these are not some new viral trend. People love pets more than kids. Pets online kids also make up for some great internet content. At least most of us are not getting pets or kids to make them social media famous. But for young adults at an age to reproduce, kids are becoming the unpopular choice. 30% of Gen C's don't intend to multiply, which is a surprising improvement or the 50% of millennials who also refuse to have kids and have honestly succeeded just judging by how old millennials are already. There are some deep humanity and society implications and people start thinking of their pets as kids. And there is a serious question of how far this is going to get us as humans. And we're going to touch on this, but what we're here for, what our business focused channel mostly cares about is this industry. This shift that has sparked one of the fastest growing industries in the world. That makes real bank on pet care, pet insurance, pet mental care, pet cloning. Kids need and ask for things. Like for their development, for their brains, to become smart adults that can still have jobs when chat GPT takes over.

3:09So the toy company just needs to slap some character on that toy and us adults end up buying those things. But pets don't really ask you to buy anything from them. Companies that make money on this have figured out ways to create these needs. These needs that don't exist. They put some of these guilt trips about what our pets deserve or how ignorant we are because we're not getting them psychological health. And the revenue that these companies are making is growing like crazy. And it's not revenue that's just based on some new innovation or some new technology. It's just some insane and sometimes pretty dark marketing tactics. This is company forensics on the business of replacing children with pets. Now these are the number of Google searches for a vet in the US over the last 15 years. And these are the searches for pediatricians. Now that's of course not an apples to apples comparison, but it's critical because of how crucial Google is to find business and how complicated it is to get your business to rank in those results.

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5:14Just kidding, really we're going to talk about kids first. This is a population pyramid and just by looking at it, you can figure out that it belongs to a developed country. What this chart tells us in a pretty intuitive visual is that people live longer lives thanks to access to better health care and that there are fewer births in these countries. People are choosing to have fewer kids. In a developing country, you'll see mostly the exact opposite. A lot of young people and fewer elders. And why is that? Well, there's of course sex education, not just a Netflix series. It's great. There's awareness and access to contraceptives. There's a smaller percentage of unplanned pregnancies and even often access to abortion. There's also more women in the workforce who delay starting a family or who just choose to have fewer children to continue and not give up on their careers. There's limited space because of urbanization. You can't fit all these kids in a New York apartment. Is that a toilet in your kitchen? Doran, stove in your bathroom? But one of these stands out above the rest. And it's money. In the US, racing a child to their 18th birthday will cost a family on average $250,000.

6:21And that certainly does not account for college. That's $14,000 a year. It's money that fewer and fewer millennials or Gen Zs have and or are feeling less inclined to to spending. We actually made a whole video about this generational debacle, so you should check that out. As a parent myself, there was really a quality of living question when Eva came with that sign. There's a quality of life that we wanted and that we wouldn't be able to have if we had two kids instead of a kid in a dog. Is it selfish? Maybe. The Pope said it was. The Pope said it was selfish. I'm not a child. I'm not a child. But I have to disagree. There are some very deep psychological reasons behind this. On adults who already have kids, cost and money is the first reason. But soon after that, you have other factors, like fear of the world and economic stability, impact of climate change, politics. College football is back. So Hilton called in me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number?

7:22We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwink up call at 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that. But for your money, shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security and pasquies, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. Propel Fitness Water With Gatorade Electrolites, Zero Sugar, and Vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water. To help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self.

8:24What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolites. The lack of free time. And it's even more concerning for adults who don't want kids at all. According to the survey, wanting more personal time was the first reason on adults with no kids. But this of course connects directly to the fact that we just have to work more now to just pay the bills. In this video I told you about generations, we found out how younger generations have to work more hours. They often have multiple jobs. And they've managed to accumulate less wealth than all the previous generations. And so it's easy to just call this selfish for not wanting more kids. Without zooming out and looking at these really profound reasons, how can we think of raising another human being when we just saw how much our parents struggled to raise us? How can we think of feeding another mouth when we haven't found footing in just being adults ourselves? Where do we get an extra $14,000 a year? Over $1,000 a month when we were struggling to pay our own bills? On the other hand, having a dog in the US, this is already expensive by most standards.

9:26Having a dog in the US costs just $2,000 a year. If you're outside of the US, again, this might sound really expensive. But these pets, they're not the pets that we grew up with. Now imagine this quintessential family of the 50s. Two parents, two kids, and of course a faithful dog named Phytos. But Phytos' life was very different back then. He was there for companionship? Yes, he was considered a member of the family, sure. But he rarely visited the vet. He would eat table scraps. He had, at the very least, the job of guarding the house when the family was away. And then fast forward to today, and Phytos is now maybe called Fifi. They have a wardrobe, attend a care while their parents are at work. God forbid, we leave your dog home alone. They have an Instagram account, and even go to doggy's pass. They might stay in a dog resort while their parents are traveling. Now the dog food aisle at Whole Foods really reflects this dramatic shift. You have that grain free or that gluten free dog food option, breed specific formulas, gourmet organic meals. And now that subscriptions are the norm, we actually made a whole video about why subscriptions are the norm.

10:26You can even get like a bark box subscription with toys and treats. This is for him. And so are these solo pet owners and these dinks? Thanks, by the way, stands for double income, no kids. Couples, great acronym. Are these guys just spending what they would have spent on their kids? Just moving that money and putting on their pet? Hold that thought, because it doesn't stop there. There's healthcare too. Medicare in the 50s was pre-reumentary compared to today's standards. And dogs probably didn't live as long. Now learning from human healthcare advancements today, you have a lot more tech to treat an animal in case they get sick. You have chemotherapy, you have MRIs, you have hit replacements, you have cataract surgeries. Treating cancer for a dog can't cost in the US upwards of $10,000. And so here's the late stage capitalism stepping in. Of course we now have dog insurance. To be fair, we've had dog insurance for a while. It was actually the Swedish who invented dog insurance back in 1890. But it became popular in the US after 1980, thanks in part to Lassie. But last year, Americans spent $2 billion on pet insurance premiums.

11:28That's 70 times what Americans were spending at the beginning of the century. A lot more people are getting insurance for their pets. The premiums are rising, but that's not stopping anyone. A lot more people are getting insurance for their animals. And the logic, I think I have to say, the logic makes sense. We love our pets more. They're more important members of the family. If they get sick, the decision to treat your pet or not used to be a money decision. But there was always that option of sending them to a farm-up state. With insurance, we can mostly guarantee that everything that can be done to help them is being done almost regardless of the cost. Look, I grew up in Costa Rica. When my first dog got pregnant, she had puppies at home in her bed in our laundry room. But even for me today, that's completely unthinkable. We don't want Uma to have puppies. And if she ever got pregnant, we'd be at the vet every week, probably. As much as pet insurance may look exaggerated, I can't argue with the logic. The pain of having to put down a dog is terrible. That's also a topic that we have to touch on.

12:29Because that's still an option that we have to talk about. After all, pets are animals. And animals don't have human rights. You can argue all you want about animal rights. But when you're facing a $10,000 cancer treatment for a dog that you can't afford, and that you're not even sure it's going to help, you think it's a sad but real option, even vets and animal activists consider valid. And that's of course not the case for humans. Everything that can be done to save a human life must be done. Except maybe in the US, if you don't have money to afford the hospital bills, but I'm not going to open that kind of worms today. You own pets. They're yours forever. They don't leave for college. They don't disappoint you when they make poor decisions. Three months into their life, they're pretty self-sufficient and don't demand that much attention. There's really no point in comparing what it is to raise a child versus raising a dog or a pet. But what we can't compare is how they make us feel. We humans long for companionship. And you can make a solid argument that if what you want is someone happy to see you when you get home,

13:31or someone to hug you if you're feeling lonely, a pet is much lower in maintenance than a partner and most definitely than a kid. Research proves that pets can help reduce stress. It's no coincidence, more and more doctors are recommending service animals to help humans with their emotional state. I don't expect doctors to start recommending service kids to people. Or just having kids are, I mean, companionship is really the wrong reason to have kids, of course. And you end up having kids for a different reason. But I always wanted kids. I always wanted kids because I felt this is going to sound weird, but I always felt my genes were worth another generation. I wanted kids because of legacy. I really want to impact people's lives. I enjoyed doing that and what better way to do that, that giving all your love and all your effort to raising another human being. I could bring that argument to the Pope and that would be kind of selfish, wouldn't it? But we do it despite the risk. We do it despite the risk of messing up, despite the cost and the fear and the uncertainty, despite... Cos football is back. So Hilton called on me, the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality.

14:34Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Ooh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwink up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security and pasquies, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. PayPal Fitness Water With Gatorade Electrolites, Zero Sugar, and Vitamins, PayPal hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self.

15:38What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolites. How much our dink lives would have to change? So I absolutely understand how that motivation is easily not enough for someone else. For someone else to do it themselves. Especially if they aren't in a comfortable position like the one I currently have. The problem here is that it's very easy to just take all this, to skew everything that I've just said, to take all of these psychological and philosophical dilemmas about legacy, about selflessness, and just flip them into a marketing company. Fresh pets is here. Trishons, fresh ingredients, with no preservatives. For every unique pet, there's a unique open-farm meal made just for that. That's aren't just pets. They're more. Pet food. Brands. They use phrases like extend the life of your pet, which sort of have implied that buying the cheaper brand will shorten it. There's also capitalizing on our own new food habits, which I'm not going to debate today. The majority of dogs can eat grains and gluten with absolutely no problem.

16:39But if the pet owner has convinced themselves that gluten is bad for them, why would they give it to their dog? And there's even an ongoing investigation by the FDA on how grain-free food might actually be linked to cardio-mionic. And there's also a big and growing market for luxury products for pets, and it's fashion and clothing. Celebrity endorsements play a huge part in this. You can slap whatever lolley you want on your t-shirt. Nobody cares about me and people care about me. Why would you have to do that to your pet? Factiq clothes and accessories can cause skin irritation, overheating, restricted movement, or anxiety. In pets, which is also a proof that we care more about these animals now. But this is also connected to a growing market for pet-specific shampoos and conditionaries, wives, over bathing, or over grooming. Pets actually strip them of essential oils in their skin and fur. But perhaps worst of all, when a breed gets popular because the queen owns it, or because Paris Hilton drives it around, then it becomes a business to breed pets. That is just horrific. They didn't ask for this treatment, but just forced to stay in this environment and suffer in dogs.

17:43So this is a puppy mill in Mississippi that was raided by the police and found its way to YouTube. Estimates say that there are about 10,000 puppy mills in the US who breed and sell up to 2 million dogs every year. And the purpose of the mills is very simple. It's profit. Female dogs are bred every time they're in heat, and they're often killed once they can no longer get pregnant. A single location can have up to 1,000 dogs, who are actually just kept in wire cages. Inbreeding becomes a problem because many generation puppies may share close ancestors, and genetics are actually a problem that predate mills. Certain dog characteristics have made up for more desirable breeds. T-Cup breeds, for example, etchewawas, pomegranates, or jerk shard terriers, people want them for their size. Pugs or French bulldogs are desirable because of their short snots. And the problem is that these breeds, they suffered genetically. They suffered because they were designed by humans, not by nature. Pugs specifically, these are called brachia cephalic breeds that means that they have this flat face. They suffer from difficulty breathing, overheating, exercise intolerance, eye problems because they're protrude, skin issues, because the skin folds, dental problems, because their shorts now means that their teeth are compressed, or the peenic problems obesity,

18:54because they're all increased when they're being inbred in a farm, or a mill, or where they came from. And the main problem is that according to progressive animal welfare society, 90% of the dogs that you would find in a pet store came from a mill. Adopting pets is better, but I'm not going to be a hypocrite today. I'm not going to tell you to adopt a stray when Uma and my dog is certainly not a stray dog. Adopting a dog is a beautiful, selfless act, and at least in the US, it would save one of the 1.5 million dogs or cats that are sacrificed in shelters every year. But I'm not here to make a point with that. I'm not here to tell you to have kids. I'm not even here to tell you to stop spending money on your dog. It's your money. You can do with it what you want. I think what's important is that you have to understand the reasons why you're doing these things. Know where your pet came from, and don't continue funding this shitty stuff. Do your damn research on what your pet actually needs, and understand how much of that is because they needed instead of because you needed for a mix of psychological reasons. Now, I don't want to close today's video on a negative note. We're learning what we're being more responsible as a society.

19:56More legislation has moved through to protect animal rights, and if we're half or humans because we have an animal, then that's by all means great news. Also, at least for now, we're not going to run out of humans. It's not a problem at the moment. By most estimates, this is interesting. The human population will hit 10 billion people by the year 2100, but it'll stay there. Maybe 10 billion humans are at least until Elon makes Mars in habitable. Being a business channel as we are, if you're looking to start a business in the pet industry, well, honestly, it doesn't look like a bad industry to be in right now. Thanks a lot for watching. Also, I hate cats, by the way. Put your limits, train with precision, see the results. At Equinox, that type of performance loving. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com.

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