The New Consumer Economy: Four Forces Changing What Products Mean

Product categories do not change in isolation. When the context around consumption shifts, the meaning of products shifts with it. Four macro forces are doing exactly that right now, and together they are rewriting what people expect from the brands they choose (a shift mapped in the Fellow Futures report ‘What Happens When People Buy Less?’).

1. Economic Uncertainty: From Volume Consumption to Value Stewardship

Prolonged economic volatility is reshaping how value is defined and expressed. Traditional markers of aspiration are moving out of reach for a growing proportion of consumers. Wealthy buyers have pivoted toward experiential, inconspicuous, and astronomically priced elite markers. Everyone else is prioritising durability, thrift, and accessible signals of taste.

The phrase “buy it for life” has moved from niche forum discussion to a genuine consumer orientation. The r/BuyItForLife subreddit now has 3.4 million members, 2.2 million weekly visitors, and 15,000 weekly contributions. Subscriptions have become a structural norm for accessing services and media. The extended warranty market grew 19% between 2023 and 2025, according to research here and here. People are not just buying less. They are buying differently, with longer time horizons and less tolerance for disposability.

58% of all adults say they are more likely to pay a premium for something longer-lasting and more durable than other options, even amid a cost-of-living crisis.

2. Cultural Portfolios: From Inconspicuous to Conspicuous Cultural Consumption

The value of authentic cultural experience is at its peak and still growing. People are building multifaceted identities and looking for products, services, and experiences that express them with precision.

This is not about conspicuous consumption in the old sense. It is about demonstrating taste, knowledge, and belonging. Political parties are hiring brand strategists. Cultural institutions are thinking like media companies. And consumers are curating their material lives the way they once curated playlists.

The product implication is significant. Objects are increasingly asked to do cultural work, to signal not just status but literacy, community, and intent. As Highsnobiety put it in 2025: “Where the last decade was defined by brand noise more than product output, we’re now in an era that is decidedly product-first.” The brands responding to this are designing for meaning, not just function.

3. Sensory Homing: From Digital Hyperstimulation to Sensory Reconnection

According to Wunderman Thompson Intelligence, 67% of people feel more detached from the real world due to technology, and 46% report feeling burned out all the time. The response is a growing demand for tangible, sensory-rich experiences that provide relief from digital overwhelm.

This is showing up in product choices. Tactile materials, analogue interactions, physical objects with weight and texture are all gaining traction against the frictionless seamlessness of modern consumer tech. It is one reason dumb phones are selling. It is one reason handmade goods on Etsy saw a 238% year-on-year increase in searches in early 2024. It is one reason 43% of people in the UK said they had a side hustle in 2024, with arts and crafts as the most common category (read more here).

For product brands, the sensory experience of an object is not secondary to its function. In many categories, it has become the primary consideration.

4. Energy Transition: From CSR to Business Sense

The energy transition is no longer primarily a values argument. It is an economic one. Solar has become the cheapest source of energy according to the International Energy Agency. Regulatory pressure on extended producer responsibility is mounting across the EU, Canada, France, and South Korea. Research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found that rising temperatures could drive overall inflation by 1.18 percentage points annually by 2035.

Brands that positioned sustainability as a virtue signal are finding that terrain increasingly uncomfortable as scrutiny sharpens and legislation catches up. The more stable position is treating environmental performance as operational hygiene, a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator.

The Through-Line

These four forces are not independent trends. They are connected expressions of a single underlying shift: people are becoming more deliberate about what they own, what it means, and how long they keep it.

For product brands, the question is not which force to respond to. It is how to build a proposition that holds up across all four.

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Next: Circularity Is No Longer a Values Play looks at how resale, repair, and recycling are shifting from brand differentiators to baseline infrastructure.