Post

Log in
About
Code of conduct
Privacy
Users
Instances
About Bonfire

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

If you want to piss me off, it's easy: just breezily assert that our tech regulation problems are the result of the fast pace of technological change racing ahead of the plodding speed of governmental action:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/22/uber-for-nurses/#go-meta

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/2026/04/30/something-must-be-done/#there-ive-done-something

A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light.

Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en — A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: How not to ban surveillance pricing (30 Apr 2026)

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: It's not a crime if we do it (to nurses) with an app (22 Apr 2026)

Copy link
Flag this post
Block

Replies: 14

Kyle Memoir 🍉

@f800gecko@mastodon.online · activity timestamp 9 hours ago

@pluralistic

Another must-read

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 9 hours ago

@f800gecko Thank you!

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Saskboy K.

@saskboy@mastodon.cc · activity timestamp 13 hours ago

@pluralistic I remember 25 years ago when government actually pretended to care about monopolies.

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

While there have been some instances in which this *was* true, it is *far* more often the case that there are blindingly obvious answers to tech problems, which our lawmakers and regulators *ignore*, amidst a rising chorus of warnings about the dire consequences of failing to act.

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

Take the new Maryland bill that (supposedly) outlaws surveillance pricing: this bill is, frankly, a terribly drafted piece of shit. Worse: it's a terribly drafted piece of shit bill that fails to resolve a serious and urgent problem. *Even worse*: the lawmakers who drafted this piece of shit bill and Maryland Governor Wes Moore were all loudly and repeatedly warned about the problems of this bill, and they did *nothing* and now the people of Maryland are *fucked*.

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

So what *is* surveillance pricing, why is it so dangerous, and what's wrong with Maryland's Protection Against Predatory Pricing Act?

Surveillance pricing is when a company spies on you ("surveillance") and uses the resulting dossier to raise its prices to the maximum it calculates you will be willing to pay ("pricing"). With surveillance pricing, a retailer reaches into your bank account and devalues your dollars.

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

If you pay $2 for an apple at the grocery store and the same store only charges me $1 for that apple, then that grocer is telling you that your dollars are worth half as much as mine:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/price-discrimination/

There's a kind of economics brainworm that makes some economists *looooove* surveillance pricing.

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Surveillance pricing lets corporations decide what your dollar is worth (24 Jun 2025)

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

~29 more replies

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

They will insist that this is an "efficient" way to price goods, and claim that surveillance pricing isn't just a way to *raise* prices on people who are willing to pay more, it's a way to *lower* prices for people who are willing to pay less.

What you're supposed to infer from this is that people who can afford more will end up paying more, while people who can afford less will pay less.

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

It's pitched as the Robin Hood of pricing policies, gouging the rich to finance discounts for the poor. But in practice, that's not at *all* how surveillance pricing works. Instead, surveillance pricing is most often used to levy a "desperation premium" on people who have fewer choices and less leverage.

For example, there's a McDonald's investments portfolio company called Plexure that supplies surveillance pricing tools to fast food restaurants.

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

Plexure advertises its ability to use surveillance data to find out when a customer has just gotten a paycheck so that vendors can increase the price of their usual breakfast sandwich order. This isn't aimed at wealthy people - it's explicitly designed to target people who are living paycheck to paycheck.

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

Surveillance pricing is also used to determine how much you get paid; when that happens, we call it "algorithmic wage discrimination." Gig platforms like Uber use surveillance data about their drivers to predict which workers are most desperate, and those drivers are offered *less* money per mile and per hour, because a desperate worker will take whatever is on offer. Gig work apps for health-care do the same thing to nurses:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/#luigi-has-a-point

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Nurses whose shitty boss is a shitty app (17 Dec 2024)

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

Indeed, surveillance pricing represents a kind of cod-Marxism. Instead of "from each to their own ability, to each according to their need," the "efficient" surveillance pricing motto is, "from each according to their desperation, to each according to our power":

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/11/socialism-for-the-wealthy/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor

Surveillance pricing is anything but efficient. Because surveillance pricing is a transfer from consumers to investors, it has the net effect of reducing consumption overall.

10/

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 3) (11 Jan 2025)

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 14 hours ago

If your grocer can screw you out of an extra $50/month on your household food bill, that's $50/month you can't spend on a babysitter, a movie, or a couple of nice books for your kid. The American economy runs on consumption, and the American consumer has less discretionary income than they've had in generations. Anything that reduces consumption is a drag on the whole economy.

11/

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block

Nicole Parsons

@Npars01@mstdn.social · activity timestamp 13 hours ago

@pluralistic

The odd hypocrisy of the "Economy that Koch Built: Immiseration Policy on Steroids"

Charles Koch started his career as a fascist-fostering bigot under the guise of "anti-communism".

This is basically opposition to unions & democracy, because regular people shouldn't band together & do "group solutions to group problems".

However, billionaires faced with the grim possibility of failing to become trillionaires, have banded together to fry the planet, ...

Copy link
Flag this comment
Block