Everything is gambling now

Sean Harding, a 45-year-old finance manager from Denver, started using an app called Whatnot. At first he spent maybe a hundred dollars a day. Within 40 days, he was spending $1,000 to $5,000 a day, swiping whenever he had a free moment—doing laundry, sitting on the toilet. His wife confronted him about missing pages on his credit report. When he finally looked at what he had spent, the number was $1.3 million in four months. He had borrowed from a friend, taken out personal loans, and when those were depleted, used his employer's credit card.

The Live Shopping Machine

Whatnot is a live shopping app. As Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Hannah Krueger describes it, imagine the Home Shopping Network had a baby with TikTok and eBay, running 24 hours a day on your phone. Sellers auction off goods in real time—coins, trading cards, horse tack, plants, even live lobsters. There's a countdown clock that can go from three to sixty seconds, the auctioneer hyping up the chat, music playing (sometimes mellow, sometimes metal or EDM). The last person to swipe at the bottom of the screen wins the item. There's no confirmation screen; the app just moves to the next product. You only find out what you got when it shows up at your door.