I'm tired of pretending tech makes things better.
I'm tired of kidding myself that all these apps, these chatbots, these "tools" are doing anything but dragging us into the mud and the shit and calling it progress.
I sat down at a cafe a few days ago, hungry and ready
In fantasy land you can open a competing restaurant. Back here on earth not only is that not an option for 99% of the population, most people are stuck with the couple choices they have in town and when tech comes in and forces the enshitificstion of services in order to pump stock price you’re stuck just eating this shit forever. That’s the problem. You seem to believe in “the invisible hand of the free market” when that simply doesn’t exist. Consumers aren’t rational. Investors aren’t rational. And the market is anything but free. Big tech is working really hard to make sure they have a stranglehold on every industry to make it worse and trap people into using their platforms.
Again, tech doesn’t FORCE anything, people choose to fuck customers (and workers) and sometimes happen to use tech as an excuse. You don’t need any tech to raise prices or lower wages, and those are some of the biggest problem we have. Whether I use an app or coins to pay for my parking is not the issue.
In a world with lobbyists, monopolies, big corporations donating billions to politicians, a QR code is nowhere near the top of the problem list.
And consumers are quite rational, the go consistently for the cheapest option that fulfills their need. You see it in online services, electronics, flights, etc.
If consumers were rational Tesla stock wouldn’t be where it is, meme coins wouldn’t exist, nft craze wouldn’t have happened (btw all examples of tech spending money to trick dumb people). Consumers routinely DO NOT go for the cheapest possible option but frequently get tricked by stupid gimmicks and smoke and mirrors. For example - Colgate started wrapping their toothpaste boxes in a clear plastic that sparkles under grocery store lights. Despite raising prices, introducing wasteful plastic, and increased packaging costs they increased market share and profits - that’s not rational. You seem to have been sold on libertarian delusions.
I never mentioned salaries and I very distinctly did mention that majority of the people in the world live in smaller communities with limited choices. If a tech overlord buys out their businesses (e.g buying all local newspaper and replacing them with mostly ai slop and agenda articles) there are not many alternatives. Insisting that because you have some choice in some matters it means everyone does is naive … and also another example of an irrational consumer lol