The next auction round starts in 5 minutes as you franticly hit 'accept' for the dynamically priced minimum bid. You forgo the premium sauce package just incase the bidding gets competitive. Up next is the Big Mac, lot of 1, and you're hungry. You don't have time to do the next 15 minute auction round, you're got to get back to the job. You take note of the shill bidder on company payroll in the corner but there's a big group today since it's the lunch rush so it'll probably be competitive. You hope he doesn't notice that you've put on makeup to cover up your gaunt look. Today you're eating. You even tried to throw off your coworkers by telling them you were going somewhere else but you still notice a few people there. Bidding starts at $25.54, about an hours wage. You grasp your phone tightly as your tap your finger to increase your bid. It climbs to $55.44 as some people walk out of the restaurant looking dejected. $65.95. You know you won't eat dinner, this small luxury is enough to satisfy you. You're top bidder, only a few seconds remain. You look up to see the shill bidder snarl at you as he stares directly into your eyes and taps once on his phone. He knows he can push you. Your heart sinks as you see the price, $135 even. You frown as you place your final bid. 'Congratulations' appears on your phone.
It’s incredible how big business has focused almost entirely on business model innovation in recent years. The last decade has been nothing but figuring out how to charge more, create recurring revenue streams, skirt regulations, download costs, eliminate competition, etc. Not that companies weren’t doing those things before, but usually they had to provide some sort of improvement in product or service or price as an excuse to ring fence and monetize their efforts. Now it’s just “I bet if we did nothing but change the way we charge money for things, we could make more money!”
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
Eating out already feels like a scam with how much prices have been jacked up the past few years.
Here it's the opposite, groceries are lots more expensive than they used to be, but going out prices have only gone up by a little
Some are, some have shrinkflated. The biggest price gouging in my country have been rent and the two largest supermarket chains, not wholesale restaurant supplies.
Next is the grocery store
The prices will be dynamic, the wages stagnant.
"Just wait a couple hours. Just adjust your circadian rhythm so that you're not hungry during peak hours. Just do your grocery shopping in between 10:23 and 11:02, it's so easy."
- Future annoying bootstraps influencers
dynamic per-item, per-customer pricing based on doing machine learning security camera analysis to see how much you've probably got as you walk in.
if you look too poor to belong in the store at all, the prices go way higher.
The prices will be dynamic, the wages stagnant.
Indeed, just remember it's not about treats, it's about ethics in economics. Don't let them smear us on this. Everybody needs treats they're a basic human right.
I can’t tell if you are joking about treats/having nice things at times. The anti-treat posts on here make me want to block people.
The anti-treat posts on here make me want to block people. Rightly so.
The joke I was attempting to construct was that the economic system we live under isn't just broken, but so broken that even the token benefits (like treats, to keep us just comfortable enough to revolt) are becoming as systemically broken as the things they're supposed to distract us from.
Complicating my awkward joke was butchering it into the format of a gamergate-eque statement (ie, it's not games it's <
everything isn't my version of perfectabout ethics in journalism>.I know it's been 5 days since I wrote that throw-away joke and I was absurdly wired and tired when I wrote it. On reflection though, I think I like the joke still unlke most of the cringe I post. To sort of reduce it to blatant absurdity, it'd be something like:
Don't get distracted about surge pricing for restaurants, it's about people starving to death because they don't have money.
Apologies for the pedantry. I might be evolving into the cringiest version of myself. :/
It’s okay.
We all deserve treats, but what makes treats treats is that no one should have too many.
You can be cringe, as a gamer treat to yourself.
I've been treating myself to some sincere posting. It's a bold new flavour for me.
I bet Wendy is now super pissed
Businesses, on the other hand, say it helps them balance supply and demand while giving customers the opportunity to take advantage of bargains at off-peak dining times.
poors can eat at 4 in the morning
Bargaining is when you eat at 1am to pay the old regular price
Any “savings” are total bullshit - a corporation will never, ever ever take anything less than they possibly can
I'm sure employers would love to give us higher wages during peak hours as well /s.
Yeah this just seems like a reason for fast food workers to unionize like the Starbucks employees did.
I’ve seen footage and some news clips of people “hacking” gas stations with remote devices or changing prices at the pump with a generic manager’s key.
If anyone here is diabolical and know more information, please let me know
I am not diabolical (not because it's wrong but because I'm a chickenshit), but is "remote device" like a raspberry pi?
Also gotta love how many things are keyed alike.
but is "remote device" like a raspberry pi?
Not the ones I’ve seen. They’re usually all from the manufacturers of the machines or some generic remote like a “universal TV remote” that just works with a bunch of stuff because it uses default protections
I wish the US had a government that implement common sense legislation to improve the lives of its citizens. Like banning this bullshit in all cases.
This is a good way to ensure that I never go out to eat ever again. Can't dynamically price my frozen pizzas.
spoiler
For the love of the gods no one lathe this please.
every little capitalist wishes they were the mythological guy upmarking shovels & pickaxes on the eve of the gold rush, but they're as a rule too chickenshit to actively try to squeeze people as they come in the store. now there's algorithms they can hide behind and control across all their locations, to them it's a wet dream.
i think the last cruel use of an 'ai' algorithm should be 'optimizing' the line these guys go to the guillotine
Print out a few pages of qr code stickers linking to PPB or :lib
For real, if you're scanning QR codes... you shouldn't be. They are not secure and it's infinitely easier to hijack a business QR code than it is to install a card skimmer, except a QR code can be used to gain access to vastly more than just your credit card details.
On a similar note there's this company I have purchased a consumable good from online that I opted for auto-renewal with because it's cheaper. I have a new card since I signed up with them so the transaction didn't go through this time around and there's nowhere on their website to change my card details. It takes idk 24-48 hours and then I get this text message saying something along the lines of "Your card has failed to process, please follow this (url shortened link) to update your details". The shortened url leads to a 3rd party payment processing and credential-storing website that is a reputable e-commerce frontend so I'm 99% it's legitimate but I was like "Naw, fuck that" and sent their company director a blistering email saying that their payment processing is virtually indistinguishable from a phishing scam and to do better.
I haven't updated my card details with them since that email and their garbage tier "I can assure you that the message you received is verified and was sent from by our team" response in protest.
Fucken tone deaf bullshit. My problem wasn't me saying "Can you please verify that you sent me this message?" (MFer, do you want me to email you every time I need to update my card details to verify this shit??) but it was that their processes are extremely vulnerable to exploits and, although I'm fairly confident that I can identify that it's legitimate, I don't want to have to go through the process of carefully checking the unshortened url for any sneaky typographical anomalies and sussing out the whole website and it creates such a lax security culture that it encourages people who aren't tech savvy to drop their guard, which can easily lead to personal disaster.
Fuck all companies, fuck capitalism etc. etc. but such blatant, negligent disregard for customer security is just straight-up bullshit.
/rantI only scan QR codes with an app which translates them to text but does not automatically follow the links within
Same! I use SecScanQR—free and open source, does exactly what I need it to and nothing more. One thing not made obvious by its interface is that you can use the Android share function to scan from an existing image as well, which is handy for when you come across one on the net.
This is a great idea actually, stuffing those little markers with propaganda at places that do this
Once this shit starts for real, just take all your groceries and leave them in the middle of the store. They’ll be thrown away - we should also be doing this with Israeli products like they did during South African boycotts.
please stop typing a CEO will read this and get ideas
my rate of profit! my rate of profit is falling 
social credit system ?