There’s an economic theory that the middle is vanishing. It kind of sounds like it should be a metaphor, until you realize it’s actually true. The middle class, the mid-priced restaurant, the mid-range hotel, all of it slipping quietly into extinction. Pew Research has been charting this for decades. In 1971, 61 percent of Americans lived in middle-class households, but by 2023, that number had eroded to 51 percent, with the runoff pooling at both ends of the income spectrum. Consumers and capital cluster at the extremes. 

I have spent months, years, really, listening to founders and designers, and I’m convinced the same comically long barbell has formed in design. The tiny studios seem fine, always scrappy, but fine. The giants are doing great. 

It’s everyone in between wondering where the work went.