But what does progress even mean, if it doesn't include better lives for people who work? What is the point of greater efficiency, if the money being saved isn't going anywhere except into shareholders' bank accounts? We should all strive to be Luddites, because we should all be more concerned with economic justice than with increasing the private accumulation of capital. We need to be able to criticize harmful uses of technology—and those include uses that benefit shareholders over workers—without being described as opponents of technology. - Ted Chiang
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I spent much of this morning reviewing Mary Meeker's 2026 report on AI. I have some thoughts that I might put into a blog post. But the thing that really struck me is that the biggest reason I think capitalism holds so strongly to people is that it directly creates a scoreboard in terms of money. People like rankings, they trust them (regardless of if they are told that they should or shouldn't) because they value ordering and knowing hierarchy.
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Ezra Klein and Jon Stewart
I listened to most of this interview on the drive into work this morning and quite enjoyed it. One thing that struck me is how Ezra comes into this wanting to discuss the right vs left and Jon multiple times redirects it to be about the capitalism machine and the media businesses which drive the wedge to their benefit.
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Google Loses Antitrust Case Over App Store
Google clearly plans to appeal, but this is a big loss for the company.
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"TikTok's enshittification"
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
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A look at the business of Costco
But how can Costco turn a profit if its products sell at a lower price than at other retailers? The answer involves its unique business model. According to the Motley Fool, nearly 80% of the company's net income is generated by its two different types of membership fees: a regular $60 per year membership fee, and a $120 per year "executive" membership fee with a 2% cash back reward on products.
These fees help Costco in two ways. First — and most importantly — they ensure that the company receives a steady stream of revenue, even when in-store purchases drop. During the COVID-19 pandemic, which temporarily forced physical stores to close, this was especially helpful. Membership fees also give customers an incentive to continue shopping at Costco in order to get their money's worth.
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Why our economy favors ultra wealthy existing
A fantastic write up with awesome interactive elements that delves into the Yard-sale model. I especially like the visualization midway through which explores the impact of wealth redistribution's impact on the system.
Interestingly, there isn't a good Wikipedia entry for it. But there are some good additional reference sources at the end of the linked article.
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Washington DC discusses a TLDR Bill against awful Terms of Services
I wasn't aware of it, but poster 'tgsovlerkhgsel' on Hacker News shared this insight into how Germany handles this:
Don't bother. Just ban/declare invalid any surprising clauses, with a regularly updated list of prohibited abusive terms that people try to slip in.
Germany has an explicit rule like that (§ 305c BGB): terms that are so unusual that the counterparty didn't have to expect them are null and void, and any ambiguities are interpreted against the side using reusable T&C's. Terms are further invalid (§ 307 BGB) if they unfairly disadvantage the other party against good faith etc.
The real meat starts in 308 and following, explicitly banning many terms - for example arbitration requirements (309 item 14).
So, doing my due diligence, I was curious to read the actual law. And as such I discovered the German government provides their laws in official translations.
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Why rail barons are so ardently refusing paid sick days
Why do these rail barons hate paid leave so much? Why would a company have no problem handing out 24 percent raises, $1,000 bonuses, and caps on health-care premiums but draw the line on providing a benefit as standard and ubiquitous throughout modern industry as paid sick days?
The answer, in short, is "P.S.R." — or precision-scheduled railroading.
P.S.R. is an operational strategy that aims to minimize the ratio between railroads' operating costs and their revenues through various cost-cutting and (ostensibly) efficiency-increasing measures. The basic idea is to transport more freight using fewer workers and railcars.
One way to do this is to make trains longer: A single 100-car train requires less track space than two 50-car ones since you need to maintain some distance between the latter. More critically, one very long train requires fewer crew members to run than two medium ones.
Another way to get more with less is to streamline scheduling so that trains are running at full capacity as often as possible.
All this has worked out poorly for rail workers writ large. Over the past six years, America's major freight carriers have shed 30 percent of their employees. To compensate for this lost staffing, remaining workers must tolerate irregular schedules and little time off since the railroads don't have much spare labor capacity left.
In short, capitalistic slavery.
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For more than 14% of people who use insulin in the U.S., insulin costs consume at least 40% of their available income, a new study finds.
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"British TV's spin-the-wheel contest for energy bills axed, mocked by Russia"
Because it is...
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"'Nobody would choose this': A turnpike rest area and a van become home for one Maine family"
Heartbreaking. A look at people doing their best to get out of the hole but can't.
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"Food expiration dates don't have much science behind them – a food safety researcher explains another way to know what's too old to eat"
It’s logical to believe that date labels are there for safety reasons, since the federal government enforces rules for including nutrition and ingredient information on food labels. Passed in 1938 and continuously modified since, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act requires food labels to inform consumers of nutrition and ingredients in packaged foods, including the amount of salt, sugar and fat it contains.
The dates on those food packages, however, are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Rather, they come from food producers. And they may not be based on food safety science.
For example, a food producer may survey consumers in a focus group to pick a “use by” date that is six months after the product was produced because 60% of the focus group no longer liked the taste. Smaller manufacturers of a similar food might play copycat and put the same date on their product.
The article also links to FoodSafety.gov as a website to get actual information on the storage guidelines for some foods.
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Lufthansa Starts 'Hate Selling' Tickets to Put People Off Flying This Summer
Like many other airlines, particularly in Europe, Lufthansa is concerned it can’t cope with the level of demand for travel after the lifting of pandemic restrictions saw a massive surge know ticket sales.
Lufthansa initially raced to meet that demand with increased capacity but it has become increasingly obvious that the airline doesn’t have the staff or resources to serve the number of customers that want to fly with the airline this summer.
For the month of July, Lufthansa has now reduced all new short-haul ticket sales to the most expensive ‘fare bucket’ offered. A round-trip ticket from London to Munich in Ecomy [sic] now costs €1,035, while a return trip from Frankfurt to Paris with direct flights on Lufthansa costs €1,039.
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"Up like a rocket, down like a feather" - A quote I remember my father using in regards to gas prices back in the 90s.
Reading this morning I realized that the gas price movement described above is just a flipped Seneca effect. And I don't think this is limited to gas, it's just the most easily observable in this way.
Seneca, the philosopher, stated in the 1st century AD:
Increases are of sluggish growth but the way to ruin is rapid.
I don't think these are directly related; more of an interesting thought I wanted to share. What is actually going on is corporations take the first opportunity to launch prices up to the max they can, and then will slowly let it fall down as people's willingness to spend dwindles until the next reason to drive prices upward.
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From the Archives: The Evil F-Word: Fine
It's easier to convince us that what we're feeling is happiness, simply because we can't tell the difference. If I'm not in active pain, then I must be happy, right? I must be fine, right?
I originally wrote this post 7 years ago, but it is more applicable today than ever before.
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