why are rich people paying for things that used to be free?
$4,000 apartment windows, west-facing bedrooms, no Lamborghinis.
I like noticing synchronicities.
Bear with me.
This weekend I’m packing. I’m packing because I’m moving. My friends are helping me pack so the move feels like it’s moving smoothly.
I just gave you a lot. But the synchronicities.
So this will be my seventh move in 6 years. I knew I wanted this week’s Brief to start there because I knew that moving seven times in 6 years is not normal. And when I sat down to write I had a random Lil Wayne lyric stuck in my head. “Real G’s move in silence like lasagna.” Honestly, one of his best. For some reason, my intuition pinged me to look up what song that lyric came from. Any guesses?
6 Foot 7 Foot.
Six years later, I’m preparing for my seventh move.
Anyway, the synchronicities will keep stacking throughout today’s Brief.
Amangiri is considered to be the most luxurious hotel in the US. It’s about a 4-hour drive from me. One hour by plane. A base room starts at $4,500 a night. The main value prop is “extreme seclusion”, a minimalist design blending in with the surrounding environment, desert rock formations, curated experiences with the local Navajo community, darkness so absolute you get a front row viewing of the Milky Way. Things the everyday American had access to for free three generations ago.
The resort also has a pool, a spa, all-inclusive luxury. Stuff you’d expect. You can get those same amenities at any Four Seasons for a fraction of the price. The $4,500 premium is buying you access to what most luxury hotels can't offer — the absence of noise, crowds, light pollution, the persistent stimulation of modern life. Absence is the amenity. Which raises the question…
How did we get here?
Another synchronicity. I realized this while flipping between packing and writing this.
I’m leaving a $4,000 a month luxury apartment in Scottsdale. Floor to ceiling windows in every room including the bedroom. I remember when picking up my keys a year ago I asked the building manager about blackout curtains. She raised an eyebrow at me like I'd just asked her to remove the plumbing. “Most people love the bright lighting. It’s part of what makes us unique.” I smiled and nodded politely, but in my head I was already scheming.
Darkness improves sleep quality.
Sleep quality supports longevity.
You could say I’ve been Bryan Johnson-pilled. After a day of research, I decided blackout curtains would not pass the aesthetic vibe-check so I opted for putting black painters tape on the windows that would be hidden behind the blinds. It was low lift and meant to be a temporary solution…
Haha. 12 months of adhesive later. Currently deciding whether to scrub it off or kiss our security deposit goodbye.
I'm moving to a quieter neighborhood. I’ll have a bedroom that faces west and darkness that doesn't require painters tape. No more Lamborghinis revving outside at 2am. (If you've been reading Rich Future for a while, you know about the Lamborghinis.)
Honestly, I didn’t realize I was making a luxury decision. I’m just a girl who loves her beauty sleep.
Amangiri charges $4,500 a night for what I’m moving toward for rent.
Bigger than one hotel
We see the premium building in other markets.
Take Substack for example. They were valued at $1.1B when they raised their Series C last July, which signals the growing appetite for premium news and analysis. Their growth is happening at the same time as traditional media platforms like NYT, WSJ, and Reuters are putting their content behind paywalls to protect their assets from LLM data scraping. And then there’s AI slop and the overall information quality decline of the internet. The free version is basically a Google search result that leads to a content farm article titled "10 Ways Noise Pollution Is Impacting Your Health (Number 6 Will Shock You)" written by someone named Health Writer, padded with keywords, three paragraphs of nothing, two ads before you even get to the first sentence. By the time you finish reading the article, you know less than when you started.
When Danish media company Zetland’s founder was asked about the state of media in 2026, he said "Consumers will not pay for more content, but for better content, selected by humans they trust."
And then there’s clean air.
Twenty years ago, you could open a window to get healthy airflow. Now there’s wildfire smoke, urban air pollution, and exposure to synthetic materials that lead to a clean indoor air problem.
The WELL Building Standard launched in 2014 as a certification for buildings that meet certain thresholds for air quality, circadian light, acoustics, and water. Since 2020, adoption has grown 12x.
WELL-certified properties now command rent premiums of 4.4% to 7.7% per square foot and purchase premiums of 10-25%. They’re not even selling luxury! Just air quality inside buildings that was once freely available.
Amangiri is part of the same story.
Their parent company, AMAN, is seeking $2B to expand globally, with 23 new projects in play. They have Amanvari opening in Baja this spring, with Miami and Beverly Hills opening in 2027 and 2028, respectively. Their current pricing for Aman New York in Manhattan ($2,900-$4,000 a night) suggests that even when there’s no desert or Milky Way views, the brand promise of peace and quiet in a city that never stops making noise is enough to hold the price point. People will pay for access to tranquility.
The window is in what hasn't been priced yet.
Focus is an interesting market. I learned about Brick from my friend Jasmine’s husband in 2024. The device started going viral recently because of how it helps people cut down their screen time. It’s also HSA-eligible which I think is worth sitting with. The IRS classified distraction as a health problem. What’s downstream of that?
HowLoud is a platform that scores the noise level of any U.S. address on a 0-100 scale. It's licensed to Apartments.com and Homes.com and processes over a million queries a day. Noise has a number now. Darkness doesn't yet. Air quality does at the building level via WELL but not at the residential level. Which is why so many of us are running air purifiers 24/7, even when they aren't that accurate. Somehow it’s become normal to pay for the measurement of… air.
Silence used to be free.
Now it costs $4,500 a night or a west-facing bedroom and a little bit of adhesive residue.
A few other things on my radar this week...
Substack and Polymarket are now natively integrated. Writers are able to embed live prediction market data directly into posts and Notes. This will get interesting with mid-terms in Q4.
Redwood quadruples San Francisco R&D footprint in under a year. The expansion is being driven by energy storage, the fastest-growing part of their business.
Clair emerges from stealth with continuous hormone wearable. Love seeing women’s health getting capital.
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I got a big chuckle out of your tape on the windows. Funny how the "temp solution" becomes the permanent one sometimes. I too move every five minutes and am somewhere around the 6 in 7 range rather than 7 in six years. Good luck with the move.