America’s à la Carte Economy Is Making Everyone Feel Poorer

Over the winter break, I took my family to see the light show at the Bronx Zoo. Here, among the sea lions and penguins, holiday magic does not come cheap. I expected to have to negotiate some extras with my kids (yes to s’mores, no to the bubble wands). But there were the surprise add-ons, too, from the $4 train ride that went twice around the parking lot to the $7 per person for a spin on the carousel.

At the school bus stop the first day back after vacation, a fellow parent lamented about the relentless upselling tactics he’d faced during a family trip to a Great Wolf Lodge water park — for an interactive scavenger game, for a late checkout, for a themed suite. When I brought up the onslaught of drip pricing at work, one colleague said her family had drawn the line at the extra $20 for the human crane at Dave & Buster’s. Another recounted the pressures to pony up for the aerial ropes course at a local rock-climbing center.