I don't buy it.

Going to a club is cheap, in most you only pay for drinks which a bit more expensive than in a pub, but it's not breaking the bank.

Here in Italy you can go to a club and spend less than 10€s for the night if you don't have to eat.

I'll say what the issue with clubs are: plenty of people never got there to have fun but to meet people and get laid. Now dating apps have removed the need for youth to go to clubs.

Obviously we live in different places, but I finished uni in Canada not too long ago and going to the club during uni was expensive. There was often a cover, if you want drinks at the bar, they'll be like 10-15$ each, if you drink at home, it's much cheaper. So usually we'd pre and then make our way to the club. But often , we'd get a little too drunk/high at home or enjoy one another's company enough that we never made it to the bar! Or if the idea was to meet new people there were often house parties where they played music, people were dancing etc anyway, they were free, didn't require lining up/id checks and often enough we're close enough to where we lived that walking home would've been easy.

Right, but rave culture used to be the antithesis of cover prices and fancy drinks. Rave culture was very much the domain of the transient, the semi-homeless, the youth that had left their parents houses without much money. (Plus some trust-fund kids of course, but they really weren't the majority.)

So "can't afford it" isn't an explanation for the decline in rave culture, even if it might be a reason kids don't go out to clubs today.

> rave culture used to be the antithesis of cover prices and fancy drinks...the domain of the transient, the semi-homeless, the youth that had left their parents houses without much money

And before that, it was grunge rock. But now, check out the prices for Pearl Jam tickets!

Boredom might’ve been underrated all along.