3 ms·

I have no idea what you're alluding to. Perhaps you need to increase the scope of your analysis?

scarface_74 2y ago
> be wielded to further economically disenfranchise most people Is Big Corp really going out of its way to “disenfranchise” consumers to make it harder to give them money?
- mindslight 2y ago
  First, yes companies make it directly harder for customers to give them money all the time with repeating high-discount sales, bespoke proprietary web/mobile store apps, captchas, loyalty/sunk cost programs, etc. These all frustrate market efficiency, so the company can then capture some of the surplus value accumulating due to friction. "Creating a moat" (aka market inefficiency) is like business school 101. But the longer term disenfranchisement trend I see is making the numeric value of money itself ever more depreciated in favor of fine grained price discrimination. So it's not that it will be "harder to give them money", but rather that you will be paying twice as much (ie not receiving coupons/vouchers to obtain the real competitive price) based on them knowing that you personally will still buy.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    > it's not that it will be "harder to give them money", but rather that you will be paying twice as much (ie not receiving coupons/vouchers to obtain the real competitive price) based on them knowing that you personally will still buy. JCPenney has been doing that for decades. When Ron Johnson - the former CEO of Apple retail - came in as CEO and tried to get rid of the constant coupons and “sales” and implement everyday low prices, consumers rebelled and he was rapidly fired. Even with cash, stores have loyalty programs that consumers gladly sign up for. In the mid 90s, I worked at Radio Shack which was infamous for tracking how often employees asked for names and addresses just to buy batteries
    - mindslight 2y ago
      I don't see how that addresses what I said. Sure, similar dynamics have existed for a while. And sure, many consumers are happy with simulated achievement. That doesn't mean they aren't getting taken advantage of, or that the dynamic won't continue to get ever worse as the corporate surveillance machine gains more capabilities.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        How much “worse” can they get? Radio Shack for instance has your information about your sales patterns since the 1990s even when using cash. Credit cards vs cash is the least of your problems and on a meta level, users have been willing to give their information to retailers and been doing couponimg for decades.
        mindslight 2y ago
        I'm still trying to work out whether you don't realize that Radio Shack closed like ten years back, or if you really think there is no difference between the information systems of now and thirty years ago.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  > Is Big Corp really going out of its way to “disenfranchise” consumers to make it harder to give them money? This happens all the time for various reasons.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Please explain the “various reasons” that companies want to make less money?
    - arunabha 2y ago
      Do yourself a favour and search HN for people's stories about their BigCo accounts for paid services being closed for no apparent reason. Most of the time these are accompanied (by design) with no way to getting beyond automated denial bots. The tired trope of capitalism ensuring that all customers will be served needs to die. Businesses always evaluate any additional revenue against the cost of getting that revenue. There are a multitude of ways in which the cost can exceed the revenue. The mundane example is that it's more expensive for Google to maintain non automated support for 'non core' services. A more harmful example is the practice of 'redlining' after the great depression where largely due to non financial reasons, the 'cost' of providing mortgages to non whites was deemed larger than the expected revenue from those mortgages.
      - mindslight 2y ago
        > Businesses always evaluate any additional revenue against the cost of getting that revenue nit: this is still coming from the vein where businesses are taken to be super-computational agents/oracles. whereas really there is a lack of evaluation of the possible revenue being left on the table, and the focus is on what has already been found to be profitable.

> be wielded to further economically disenfranchise most people Is Big Corp really going out of its way to “disenfranchise” consumers to make it harder to give them money?

mindslight 2y ago
First, yes companies make it directly harder for customers to give them money all the time with repeating high-discount sales, bespoke proprietary web/mobile store apps, captchas, loyalty/sunk cost programs, etc. These all frustrate market efficiency, so the company can then capture some of the surplus value accumulating due to friction. "Creating a moat" (aka market inefficiency) is like business school 101. But the longer term disenfranchisement trend I see is making the numeric value of money itself ever more depreciated in favor of fine grained price discrimination. So it's not that it will be "harder to give them money", but rather that you will be paying twice as much (ie not receiving coupons/vouchers to obtain the real competitive price) based on them knowing that you personally will still buy.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  > it's not that it will be "harder to give them money", but rather that you will be paying twice as much (ie not receiving coupons/vouchers to obtain the real competitive price) based on them knowing that you personally will still buy. JCPenney has been doing that for decades. When Ron Johnson - the former CEO of Apple retail - came in as CEO and tried to get rid of the constant coupons and “sales” and implement everyday low prices, consumers rebelled and he was rapidly fired. Even with cash, stores have loyalty programs that consumers gladly sign up for. In the mid 90s, I worked at Radio Shack which was infamous for tracking how often employees asked for names and addresses just to buy batteries
  - mindslight 2y ago
    I don't see how that addresses what I said. Sure, similar dynamics have existed for a while. And sure, many consumers are happy with simulated achievement. That doesn't mean they aren't getting taken advantage of, or that the dynamic won't continue to get ever worse as the corporate surveillance machine gains more capabilities.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      How much “worse” can they get? Radio Shack for instance has your information about your sales patterns since the 1990s even when using cash. Credit cards vs cash is the least of your problems and on a meta level, users have been willing to give their information to retailers and been doing couponimg for decades.
      - mindslight 2y ago
        I'm still trying to work out whether you don't realize that Radio Shack closed like ten years back, or if you really think there is no difference between the information systems of now and thirty years ago.
bigstrat2003 2y ago
> Is Big Corp really going out of its way to “disenfranchise” consumers to make it harder to give them money? This happens all the time for various reasons.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Please explain the “various reasons” that companies want to make less money?
  - arunabha 2y ago
    Do yourself a favour and search HN for people's stories about their BigCo accounts for paid services being closed for no apparent reason. Most of the time these are accompanied (by design) with no way to getting beyond automated denial bots. The tired trope of capitalism ensuring that all customers will be served needs to die. Businesses always evaluate any additional revenue against the cost of getting that revenue. There are a multitude of ways in which the cost can exceed the revenue. The mundane example is that it's more expensive for Google to maintain non automated support for 'non core' services. A more harmful example is the practice of 'redlining' after the great depression where largely due to non financial reasons, the 'cost' of providing mortgages to non whites was deemed larger than the expected revenue from those mortgages.
    - mindslight 2y ago
      > Businesses always evaluate any additional revenue against the cost of getting that revenue nit: this is still coming from the vein where businesses are taken to be super-computational agents/oracles. whereas really there is a lack of evaluation of the possible revenue being left on the table, and the focus is on what has already been found to be profitable.