iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 25/07/2026

It may strike you as weird, but lenders *love* lending to poor people who will have trouble paying them back. Obviously, lenders want to be repaid, and the more money you have, the easier it is to settle your debts, but that means that if you have a lot of money, you pay *less* to borrow. 1/

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 25/07/2026

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: pluralistic.net/2026/07/25/c... 2/

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Tim Goodacre - Writer @timgoodacre.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

As that great economist Terry Pratchett observed, poverty is expensive.

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David @storybridge.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Why we need limits on payday lenders. Also, more attention to "just credit". The right to a decent standard of living requires money to pay for that standard. So, access to affordable credit should also be a right. Rich people get loans and it is viewed as fine, poor people do it and judged.

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Ken Muldrew @kenmuldrew.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

"Look at all those bums. Just imagine how much they owe." Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man.

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Marielza @marielza.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

💯. This is exactly what my PhD dissertation was about: perceived price fairness, when rich x poor pay different (higher x lower) prices for the same thing. The rich paying less for financial access (loans, credit, etc) is viewed as fair by both rich AND poor...

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drf5n.bsky.social @drf5n.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

I knew someone on SSDI, with bad credit who ended up with large CC bills bc of a bad roommate. The high CC rates are ostensibly designed to offset the risks, but my very earnest someone didn't want to default. It took them 10+years to pay them off, all from SSDI.

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J Eric Calvert @jecalvert.com · 25/07/2026

I’ve even heard of cases where car salesmen use a line like “we can’t get you approved for a loan for this $10,000 car because of its age, but we can get you approved for this $60,000 car because it’s newer. It’s about the same payment.” They know you’ll default shortly and they’ll get the car back

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Riggsveda @riggsveda.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

As a former poor person (still poor in my head) this isn’t weird at all. It’s like shorting the market, counting on a stock to fail, except the investor gets to set up the conditions to enSURE it fails. It’s why being poor is so much more expensive, relatively, than being rich.

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