Molly and Max are fundamentally local-optimizing life-hackers, trading the mainstream casino economy for more predictable marginal ones with some substance. Both appreciate excellence and detest mediocrity. One optimizes for taste and aesthetics, the other for effectiveness and financial leverage.

But here’s the fundamental problem with Molly and Max: there is ultimately no guaranteed sustainability on the margins either. Max might retire early, but must then face the void of meaning created by a decade of mercenary arbitraging. Molly might find deep meaning in her knowledge of coffee, but at some point the credit card bills will become overwhelming.

Neither Molly, nor Max, has accepted the bargain at the heart of premium mediocrity that Maya Millennial has, which is to refuse to deny either the need for meaning or the need for financial sustainability. Which is why she chooses to fake both for a while in the hope of acquiring both for good later.

Molly thinks Maya has a taste problem; that she is a beyond-the-pale philistine. But Maya knows she actually has a long-term financial sustainability problem and refuses to be in denial about it.

Max thinks Maya has a skills problem; that she’s a bullshit artist who cannot deliver the twitter trends she pretends to understand. But Maya knows she actually has a long-term meaning problem and refuses to be in denial about it.