By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/08/2026Amazon knows the price you're willing to pay, it knows who's set the lowest price, and it knows how many identical items that match your query are for sale. But the sellers don't know any of that, and you only know some of it. 41/ 1374
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/08/2026By capitalizing on that information (rather than using it to efficiently match buyers and sellers), Amazon can match you with the sellers willing to pay the highest junk fees, rather than the ones who offer the best price for the best goods: pluralistic.net/2023/11/03/s... 42/pluralistic.netPluralistic: Big Tech’s “attention rents” (03 Nov 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow 1455
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/08/2026This is Wu's Main Character Syndrome in action. Once Amazon attains a dominant market share, it can maximize its own welfare at the expense of its buyers and sellers, transforming itself from a helper to a parasite: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf... 43/lawfaremedia.orgLawfare Daily: Tim Wu on ‘The Age of Extraction’ 2509
