Hayao Miyasaki is the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation studio known worldwide for their stunning, emotional, beautiful stories and movies. At the core of Studio Ghibli’s work is a deep engagement with questions of humanity. About what it means to be a human, about how to care for one another and the world […]
But they don’t have to rely on personal connections to rig the price of potatoes: they do it through a third-party data-broker called Potatotrac. Each cartel member sends all their commercially sensitive data – supply costs, pricing, sales figures – to Potatotrac, and then Potatotrac uses that data to give “advice” to the cartel members about “optimal pricing.”
This is the real sick stuff, same with RealPage. They’re just offering a service that could allow the businesses they serve to collude, but because they’re just doing it through a third party service it’s suddenly not collusion.
Doctorow pretty spot on as usual. I’m glad he’s come a long way, because I actually kind of disliked his writing on Boing Boing in the early 2000’s because he often got some simple facts wrong. He’s much more thorough and rigorous now.
I agree on the double standard. I also think there’s an element of Cory Doctorow’s point that “it’s not a crime of we do it with an app.”
Running an unlicensed taxi service or hotel business? No no we’re not criminals, we’re disrupting stagnant markets!
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/25/potatotrac/
It’s basically a blanket pass for tech bros to bend and break laws
This is the real sick stuff, same with RealPage. They’re just offering a service that could allow the businesses they serve to collude, but because they’re just doing it through a third party service it’s suddenly not collusion.
Doctorow pretty spot on as usual. I’m glad he’s come a long way, because I actually kind of disliked his writing on Boing Boing in the early 2000’s because he often got some simple facts wrong. He’s much more thorough and rigorous now.