Noted anti-capitalist agitator Adam Smith had it right: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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That's why Toyota, the largest car-maker in the world, just did Dieselgate *again*, more than a decade later. Digitalization is a temptation no giant company can resist:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wwj1p2wdyo
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Toyota: World's largest carmaker raided over safety scandal
Annabelle Liang (BBC News)Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy
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Cory Doctorow
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More and more sectors have an Agri Stats, and digitalization has made this price-gouging system faster, more efficient, and accessible to sectors with less concentration.
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Cory Doctorow
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https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating
Writing for *The American Prospect*, Luke Goldstein lays out the many ways in which these digital intermediaries have supercharged the business of price-rigging:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-05-three-algorithms-in-a-room/
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Three Algorithms in a Room
Luke Goldstein (The American Prospect)Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/
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The Unaccountability Machine - Profile Books
Profile BooksCory Doctorow
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https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/e/fire-sale-at-the-accountability-store-feat-dan-davies/
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Fire Sale at the Accountability Store feat. Dan Davies | TRASHFUTURE
trashfuturepodcast.podbean.comCory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags
My name for this digital flexibility "twiddling." Businesses with digital back-ends can alter their "business logic" from second to second, and present different prices, payouts, rankings and other key parts of the deal to every supplier or customer they interact with:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/
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Cory Doctorow
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html
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Cory Doctorow
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https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-04-one-person-one-price/
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One Person One Price
David Dayen (The American Prospect)Cory Doctorow
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Proponents of this idea - like Harvard's Pricing Lab with its "Billion Prices Project" - insist that this isn't a way to rip you off. Instead, it lets companies *lower* prices for people who have less ability to pay:
https://thebillionpricesproject.com/
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/12/market-failure/#car-wars
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Cory Doctorow
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https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/
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Cory Doctorow: IP
Locus OnlineCory Doctorow
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https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/
But apps are a closed platform, and reverse-engineering and modifying an app is a literal felony - *several* felonies, in fact.
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How is the world’s biggest boycott doing?
Doc Searls WeblogCory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet
(Google is leading a charge to turn the web into the kind of enshittifier's paradise that apps represent, blocking the use of privacy plugins and proposing changes to browser architecture that would allow them to felonize modifying a browser without permission:)
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Some people are upset because they think Facebook made Grampy into a Qanon. Others, because they think Insta gave their kid anorexia.
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Cory Doctorow
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https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/04/meta_ad_algorithm_discrimination/
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Meta algorithms push Black people more toward expensive universities, study finds
Thomas Claburn (The Register)Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act
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Cory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy
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Cory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does
The FBI is raiding landlords to build a case against Frontpage and other rent price-fixers:
https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating
Agri Stats is facing a DoJ lawsuit:
https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/market-news/agri-stats-loses-motions-to-transfer-dismiss-in-doj-antitrust-case
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Agri Stats loses motions to transfer, dismiss in DOJ antitrust case
Ann Hess (National Hog Farmer)Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Maybe they would do that - if they didn't have a toolbox full of algorithmic twiddling options and a deep trove of surveillance data that let them all raise prices together:
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-06-05-time-for-fed-to-meet-ftc/
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Time for the Fed to Meet the FTC
Robert Kuttner (The American Prospect)Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://media-ecology.org/convention
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Media Ecology Association - Convention
media-ecology.orgCory Doctorow
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Cryteria (modified)
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CC BY 3.0
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File:HAL9000.svg - Wikimedia Commons
commons.wikimedia.orgCory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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n8chz 🩎
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Nicole Parsons
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They also:
1. Lobby to defund regulatory oversight that favors themselves
2. Negotiate ruinous purchase contracts that send their suppliers into bankruptcy
3. Set low wage levels in the entire industry in concrete. Ask yourself why all fast-food employees are paid the same.
4. Lobby for tax cuts or tax subsidies that bankrupt small towns.
5. Collude to standardize contract language that is illegal
Cory Doctorowudostępnił to.
𝗖 𝗔 𝗧
•Loïc Denuzière
•The joke being that raving capitalists follow Adam Smith about as well as Christian fundamentalists follow Jesus.
@Radical_EgoCom @pluralistic
A⍼ex
•Cory Doctorow
•Becca 🏳️⚧️ 🇺🇦 🇸🇩 🇵🇸
•Marcus Marcius Marcellus
•And with {has read, or let’s be honest, even heard of the Moral Sentiments}, it’s the null set.
MarjorieR
•Their President, Madsen Pirie, describes the activity of the organisation as "[to] propose things which people regard as being on the edge of lunacy. The next thing you know, they're on the edge of policy".
Unfortunately a bit too near the truth, given our current government and putative successor.
Needless to say they entirely besmirch and misrepresent Adam Smith's legacy.
Anyway, here's a portrait of the man, a Tassie Medallion. I got a copy of this 50 years ago as an award when I graduated in economics.
https://www.scran.ac.uk/packs/exhibitions/learning_materials/webs/40/adam_smith.htm