This animated graph tracks what Americans considered the biggest “scams” from 1950 to 2026. The 1950s were all about door-to-door salesmen, mail-order catalogs, TV repairmen, and S&H Green Stamps. A simpler time. People got ripped off in person, like gentlemen.
Then we discovered electricity could be used for evil too, and upgraded to payday loans, Big Pharma, crypto, email phishing, shrinkflation, and pay-to-win games. Humanity invented the internet and immediately asked, “But what if we made everything suspicious?”
Health insurance keeps charting near the top in the modern era, which as a Canadian is discouraging to me. The Canadian version of this chart would just have that bar labeled “wait, you guys PAY extra for that?” Sure, we do pay it through our income taxes, but nobody gets ruined over it here.
Quick disclaimer: this isn’t one magical survey that ran from 1950 to 2026. The video stitches together consumer research, polling, regulatory complaint data, academic studies, and other sources to reconstruct how our collective paranoia evolved.
Anyway, placing my bets for 2050: AI girlfriends, a subscription tier for oxygen, and a $14.99/month plan to unlock the second floor of your own house. Probably bundled with ads.