People are paying to live inside smaller ecosystems of meaning

The internet promised infinite choice and boy did it deliver. But infinite choice has turned out to be surprisingly tiring. Sometimes I don’t want more options. I want fewer decisions. It’s what led me to dive a bit deeper into higher-end memberships.

The memberships I’m talking about don’t offer more products. Or discounts. Not even convenience, really. They offer relief from choosing and, in my opinion, the ability to outsource certain identity decisions to someone you trust.

To be clear, this feels different from the $2–$12/month subscription ecosystem many of us live inside: Substacks, recipe clubs, bonus podcast feeds, Patreon memberships. Those are often about supporting creators or unlocking additional content. What I’m writing about today feels closer to luxury experiences. They require more trust, more investment, and a deeper relationship with the brand or founder.

And while this version feels modern, the concept itself isn’t new. Membership-only spaces have existed for centuries (social clubs, country clubs, patron societies, collectors’ circles). There has always been a human desire to gather inside smaller, more intentional worlds. What’s different now is that founders, editors, and creative brands are building those worlds themselves and making them available to anyone who appreciates them and has the funds to join. If you stick around, I talk about how this conflicts and aligns with fandom.

One example is the Four Objects Collector program. It’s $1,880/year. The premise is simple: members receive four objects per year, carefully selected by the brand, as part of a capsule approach to ownership. Instead of constantly shopping or replacing things, you let the brand help you build a small collection of objects that are meant to last.

Four Objects says, “leave the shopping to us.” It’s selling the confidence that someone with aligned taste and values is helping make those decisions with you, or maybe even for you. You become a collector and an investor, not a shopper. The word choice is worth noting. Collecting suggests intention and care. It suggests a slower relationship to objects in general.

There’s identity embedded in that shift. A collector is someone who owns fewer things but better ones. Someone who believes sustainability is important. Someone who trusts curation over accumulation. Membership, in this case, becomes a way to lean further into an identity through taste.

A different version of this shows up in Rose Club, a $900 annual membership program from Rose Los Angeles. If Four Objects feels like outsourcing decisions, Rose Club feels more like outsourcing relationship. The membership includes quarterly care packages curated with the member, an onboarding call, editorial writing, recipes, early access to products, and even direct phone or text access to the team. The program describes itself not as a product but as a “sustained relationship of reciprocal care,” which feels like a very specific promise in a retail landscape that usually prioritizes efficiency over connection.

Rose Club feels more like joining a food culture world…one that blends cooking, writing, aesthetics, and care into something cohesive. A little like a CSA, a little like a magazine membership, a little like a cooking school, and a little like being part of someone’s creative project. Membership becomes participation. You’re not just buying objects; you’re joining a system of taste, values, and attention.

Both of these memberships seem to be solving the same emotional problem. We are overwhelmed by choice. And when choice becomes overwhelming, identity can feel unstable. If everything is available all the time, how do you decide who you are through what you own, wear, cook, or read? One answer is curation. Another is community. Another is proximity to founders or editors whose taste you trust. Memberships bundle all of these things.

Premium memberships are, to me, starting to look like a sort of twisted modern fandom. Fans often want trusted guides inside the worlds they care about or direct connection and proximity. They want to feel like they’re inside rather than outside. Membership programs recreate those dynamics in commerce. Instead of following a band, you follow a founder. Instead of collecting collectibles, you collect objects. Instead of joining a forum, you join a club. The structure is changing, but the architecture is familiar: belonging, participation, and identity reinforcement.

I think this is happening now because the algorithmic internet has made taste feel both more accessible and less trustworthy at the same time. We can discover anything, but it’s harder to know what matters. We can buy everything, but it’s harder to know what to value. We can follow thousands of creators, but it’s harder to feel close to any of them. Membership offers a smaller world. One that’s curated, slower, and easier to return to.

In an infinite internet, people are paying to live inside smaller ecosystems of meaning.

But I do think there’s an important distinction to make here. High-end memberships can create proximity, access, and alignment but I’m not convinced it can create fandom on its own. Fandom isn’t something you can purchase outright. You can buy access to a world, but you can’t buy the emotional investment in it.

If anything, the truest signal of fandom has never been money. It’s time.

Fans spend time learning the lore, talking with others, collecting meaning (not just objects), and participating in the culture of something they love. They make playlists, screenshots, moodboards, recipes, costumes, group chats, inside jokes. They return again and again, not because they paid to be there, but because they care.

Payment can signal commitment, but it can’t replace participation. It can’t replace identity shift. It can’t replace fan labor. The strongest memberships don’t try to sell fandom. They create conditions where fandom can continue to grow.

Because fandom isn’t measured by how much you pay. It’s measured by how long you stay.