Petoskey — Little motels huddle together outside of town, standing alone on the side of US-31 heading north. A few rooms, a few parking spaces. Brightly painted doors, old vintage signs. They aren’t pricey. They aren’t luxury. They aren’t supposed to be. They are where you crash when you need it and nothing more. They are the trip Up North. Rustic and small town. A pizza delivered to the room after 11 p.m. Coffee at 8 a.m. and you are out the door.

Yet these motels are vanishing. What is killing these quaint relics of old America? Feature creep.

Feature creep is the continual expansion and addition of luxurious features. At first, it sounds great. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would have a problem with updates and convenience. Who doesn’t want nicer things? But everything in this world has a cost. Feature creep almost always results in more complications, and, most importantly, higher costs. It can be found everywhere: apartments, houses, electronics, restaurants, cars, motels.

Feature creep in motels often goes something like this: The owners are getting old and want to get out of the business, so they sell the place. The new owner is passionate about maximizing his investment. He gets the place stripped down and slicked up. Cold bland paint. New fake wood floors. Black and white photos of abstract “art” above the bed. The old lamps find the dumpster. The whole aesthetic turns sleek. Maybe they add a courtyard with a few chairs and industrial-style picnic tables. The Wi-Fi is juiced up. Old spirally railings get replaced by harsh black industrial steel. This is supposed to signal to guests that the place is cool. It used to be $75 a night. Now it’s $150. 

Is it some great and terrible sin to renovate a place? Of course not. But is it worth the price? That’s the question. That’s the conundrum of feature creep. Does a soulless sleek interior that lags 15 years behind some no-name hotel in Madrid really make the stay that much better? Does the courtyard they now call, “the commons,” really improve your experience? Is anyone even out there? Ever? That new smart TV that takes up half the wall; did you even turn it on? These new additions don’t improve the experience at all. You start to suspect the only reason they were even added was so the owner could increase the price.

If feature creep was limited to new builds, it would be one thing. It wouldn’t be quite as pressing. But that’s not what happens. The new, juiced-up motels replace the old, affordable options. First it’s one, then it’s two. The desire to add more and more luxurious features keeps regulars out and draws others in. Then it’s an arms race. Slowly, more and more of the cheap options mutate into not-so-cheap options. The ratio starts to flip. New motels become the majority. The bottom is no longer $65 a night for a place to crash. It’s $150 and climbing. Traveling becomes more expensive, so people are more stressed. They can’t stop thinking about the cost as they try to relax. And for what? New gray fake-wood flooring.

It’s not just about money. There is a real cultural factor here as well. Those old motels have a distinct vibe. There is some aesthetic there. It might be outdated. It might be—for good and bad—vintage. But it is something. There’s a spirit to it. It’s the 20th century road trip. It’s simple Americana. It’s for the young who don’t have any money. Floral sheets, honey oak end tables, lamps made for warm incandescent lights: It’s cheap, and lovable, nostalgia.

These motels are a micro-adventure. “We stayed at some cheap motel,” is the way you start the story years later. That’s what we want to reminisce about, what we want to remember. No film is shot in the nouveau-sleek motel, because no one really wants to be there in their fantasy. It’s empty. It’s dull. The film is shot in the cheap little motel on the side of the road. The one you’ve never heard of.

A particularly egregious example of this phenomenon is the Bay Inn just outside of Petoskey. The story follows the typical formula but with some additionally sordid details. The inn used to be owned by a local couple. A quintessential mom-and-pop place. The rooms were vintage and plain, simple and cozy. They felt like a trip Up North. Quiet and removed. Then they sold the place. 

The new owners don’t live here. It’s a full self-check-in experience now. That’s what they call it on the website at least. It really means that it’s basically an Airbnb. There’s an old sign that directs you to a place where an office used to be, but there’s no one there anymore. When you call the number on their site, you are connected with someone outside the U.S. When I called to ask about check-out, I was talking to a woman in the Philippines. 

It’s not only feature creep at the Bay Inn. It’s also outsourcing jobs in order to save a few bucks. It’s a nauseating example of globalism. We expect to be on the line with someone from the Philippines when we call some big corporation. We don’t expect the same when we are calling about check-out at a small little motel on the side of the road in northern Michigan. 

The rooms have been updated in the typical fashion. Fake wood that’s supposed to look slick. A gray desk. A huge smart TV. Lots of cobalt and blue. Kitsch artwork and pandering pillows try to give you a feeling of authenticity. The room looks like it was bought on Temu. The bathroom is what you expect. The wallpaper is new but it’s already peeling. The rooms look dollar-store slick and soulless.

On the surface, it all appears to be what we are supposed to think of as nice according to the logic of 2024 consumerism. It doesn’t matter if they are actually cheap, it sounds like there are more features, and who doesn’t want more features? 

We come back to this fundamental question: Is it worth it? There’s always a price.

Are the features even that great? Do they add anything at all? Or are they all an illusion, like the false front of a building that stands on a movie set? They are only there to extract more money from our wallet.

Like the dupe on the street who loses his shirt to the con-artist, we all lose to feature creep.

O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X @NecktieSalvage.