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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 23/03/2026

Dollar stores are notorious for this, using their market power to procure extremely small packages of common goods in "cheater sizes" that have high per-unit costs (e.g. the cost per ounce for soap), while still having a low price tag (the cost per (small) bottle of soap). 9/

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 23/03/2026

These stores are situated in food deserts, which they create by boxing in local grocers and heavily discounting until the real grocers go out of business. They're also situated in *work* deserts, because driving regular grocers out of business destroys the competition for labor, too. 10/

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 23/03/2026

That means they can pay low wages and charge high prices and make a hell of a lot of money, which is why there are so many fucking dollar stores: pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/w... That's the most obvious form of value harvesting, but it's not the only one. 11/

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Rural towns and poor urban neighborhoods are being devoured by dollar stores (27 Mar 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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