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Boosted by aredridel@kolektiva.social ("Mx. Aria Stewart"):
pluralistic@mamot.fr ("Cory Doctorow") wrote:

What industry calls "personalized pricing" is really *surveillance* pricing: using digital tools' flexibility to change the price for each user, and using surveillance data to guess the worst price you'll accept:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/price-discrimination/

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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:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/06/empiricism-washing/#veena-dubal

1/

A robot in an old fashioned frock coat. In one hand, he holds a giant magnifying glass. On the other stands a child laborer - a coal miner from the 1910s, squinting at the camera. Terrifying energy beams streak out of the robot's eyes into the glass and at the child. The background is an extremely dark, very roughed-up US $100 bill.