the.com/membership
Proof you paid to belong, whether the belonging is real or not.
means The status of officially belonging to a group, club, or organization, usually with rights, dues, or obligations attached.
from Built from 'member' (from Latin 'membrum,' a limb or body part) plus the suffix '-ship,' which denotes state or condition. The body-part root carries through: a member of a group is imagined as a limb attached to a larger organism, the way an arm belongs to a body. 'Membership' as the abstract condition of being one of those limbs emerged in English by the medieval period, well before the word drifted toward its modern sense of cards, fees, and gyms.
- oldest trick
- guilds used membership to gatekeep entire trades
- psychology hack
- sunk cost makes members defend bad groups harder
- modern twist
- apps turned loyalty cards into subscription traps
- etymological irony
- word literally means becoming a body part