By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 07/09/2026To quote another economist joke: > Two economists are walking down the street when one notices a $20 bill on the sidewalk. "It's not a real $20 bill," the other declares. "If it were a real $20 bill, someone would have picked it up off the sidewalk already." 210113
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 07/09/2026Half a century later, our entire economy is dominated by monopolies, duopolies and cartels, who boast of *gigantic* margins, whose products are palpably worsening at an accelerating clip. 112220
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 07/09/2026Yet there is no sign of the "new market entrants" who should be flooding into the market to "compete away" those amazing margins. It turns out that asking "What would I do if I were a horse?" does not yield a series of accurate predictions about horses. 1825