I vividly remember my childhood visit to Disneyland. My dad hanging on to his glasses as we whipped around the Matterhorn. Greasy food. Me chickening out of Space Mountain moments before boarding. That middle-class vision of Disney is dead because the country where it flourished no longer exists. Thanks to the fast-growing purchasing power of our affluent — combined with the rise of the internet, the smartphone and now artificial intelligence — our companies and institutions are increasingly tailoring their offerings to the wealthiest among us. For a guest essay published today, Daniel Currell spent months researching Disney’s transformation from its “Everyone Is a V.I.P.” days to today, where the rich can splurge on an ever-expanding list of luxuries that includes far easier access to the park’s choicest rides than those waiting in standby lines have. He tells the story through the experience of Scarlett Cressel, a school-bus driver who spent years saving for her family’s Disney World trip. “Based on what we earn, we see different ads, stand in different lines, eat different food, stay in different hotels, watch the parade from different sections, and on and on,” Mr. Currell writes. “What’s profitable today is not unification. It’s segmentation.” Read the guest essay:
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