Dropshippers Get Rich by Making You Feel Poor

Maddy Glynn wants me to feel poor. “If you’re in your 20s or 30s and you’re not making at least ten thousand dollars a month,” she starts one TikTok, “Watch this.” Maddy, who has nearly 250,000 followers on the platform, is tan, blonde, telegenic, and 24 years old, is standing in a house with bare off-white walls and a few immaculately placed houseplants, but no furniture in sight. It’s the sort of house that looks empty in an expensive way—in a way that mine does not, presumably because I have not yet taken her course in dropshipping.