By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 23/03/2026But long before digitization made twiddling possible, businesses that found themselves in a position to make things worse for their customers and workers without facing consequences were accustomed to doing so. 5/ 162
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 23/03/2026Think of the airport shop that sells water for $10/bottle: that's a ripoff whether you're in coach-minus or flying first class, and it's made possible by the TSA checkpoint that makes shopping elsewhere a time-consuming impossibility. 6/ 193
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 23/03/2026The airport shop is the only game in town - a "monopolist" in economics jargon. When a business has something you really want (or even better, something you *need*) and it's hard (or impossible) for you to get it elsewhere, they can take value away from you and harvest it for themselves. 7/ 172
