Consumer security

The Big Tech Extortion Racket

From the perspective of a political economy micromanaged by Amazon and Google, the harms that Smith feared seem innocuous. Yes, mercantilism and monopolism, just as he warned, have warped commercial activities toward wasteful and unnecessary ends. But when the prices of goods and services are out in the open, and the public is able to identify fluctuations, then we the people can take action to fix structural problems.

The danger of price discrimination is not merely that it grants a monopolist the ability to pick and choose winners and losers. It is not merely that it grants a monopolist the ability to manipulate commercial interactions to extort money and political favor from those who rely on them to get to market. The problem with personalized discrimination is that even as it empowers the masters of these corporations to atomize prices, it atomizes society at the same time.

In the world of Amazon, Google, and Facebook, not only are we subject to the will of a few private companies, manipulated moment to moment by unseen forces that rule our commerce, track our movement, and record our every thought. Each of us must now suffer alone, with less and less ability to commiserate with others about our common problems. The power of the middleman has become so great as to make each of our problems unique, solely a matter between us and the master.