The Shopping Bag Subscription: Because Your Wallet Wasn’t Bleeding Enough Already
Coming soon to a store near you — 2026’s hottest new scam disguised as “convenience”: the Shopping Bag Subscription™.
If you live in California, you already know the drill. You buy your groceries, you approach the register, and the cashier asks with the emotional monotony of a DMV printer: “Do you want to purchase a bag for 10 cents?” It’s practically a state anthem at this point.
For years, nothing has changed. You hand over your dime and receive a paper or plastic bag durable enough to survive approximately 0.3 seconds of human use. But this is America — the land of innovation, disruption, and charging you for things that used to be free.
So naturally, Silicon Valley’s favorite business model has finally made its way to retail: Why ask you every time… when they can just charge you forever?
Introducing the Bagflix Subscription. Because if Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and your neighbor’s third cousin’s streaming service can do it, why can’t your local supermarket?
The Subscription Tiers (Yes, This Is Real Now)
SILVER — $3/month
Up to 10 bags
The quality of tracing paper
Decorated with ads for products you’ve never bought and never will
GOLD — $5/month
Slightly thicker bags in “premium beige”
No ads (just the shame of knowing you pay $60 a year for bags)
Feels luxurious until it rips anyway
Both plans automatically renew monthly until the sun burns out, or until you notice the mystery charge on your credit card and briefly consider canceling before ultimately forgetting again.
But Wait—There’s More (There Always Is)
The best part? Most customers will stop visiting the store after month three, but the subscription will cheerfully keep billing them—just like that gym membership from 2018 you still haven’t canceled.
Meanwhile, revenue skyrockets, profits soar, and politicians take credit for “stimulating the economy” even though all they did was show up for the photo op and pretend they read the bill.
And you, standing there with your crumpled bag and your $5 monthly regret, wonder: “How did I not think of this first?”
But don’t worry — you still have time to invent something even more absurd. May I suggest:
Milk-as-a-Service™ — Freshness delivered monthly, whether you want it or not
Strawberry+™ — Premium berries year-round for only $19.99, even when they taste like winter sadness
After all, if bags can get a subscription model, what can't we monetize?
America: always innovating. Usually in the wrong direction.