He didn't say, “What if customers had to log in to discover that we serve mozzarella sticks?” He said “What if customers had to log in to discover how much we're going to charge them for mozzarella sticks?” Dynamic pricing.
There's a restaurant in Brussels where there is no menu: the owner comes to the table and tells you what they have. The "Buiten Verwachting" in Boutersem has its menu on a blackboard, because you get what was fresh at the market that day. These are restaurants I do.
My chest freezer was my mum's and I inherited it when she passed in 2009. I'd helped fetch it when she bought it secondhand from someone in Harrogate, using the van of a friend who ran an engineering company when I was 14. This year, it has been in our family's possession for 50 years and it doesn't know it ever left the old country. I pray every time I need to switch it on, so there is, I have to admit, a cloud connection.
yeah the dynamic pricing this is peak cringe. i just watched a hacker on youtube that figured out a way to change the prices using bluetooth of those dynamic price tags. he got 8000 bucks worth of stuff for a grand. lol
But seriously, we got used to thinking that asking for our e-mail was simply a ruse to send us "occasional offers". We can always decline occasional offers, or direct them to junk.
But now, that's less "it". Our identity is used not just to market stuff to us, but to determine how much it is we will pay for it. And I'm not entirely sure how "No, thank you" translates into a price the next time something's offered. iPhone is the access point to the world? Well, it is, but it's also the world's access point to you.
Dynamic pricing is really fun when you are buying Airplane tickets.. refresh and you had another 100 bucks. :) a bidding war.. IN THEORY ;) for that seat. uh huh.. so the CRAZY red head was giving out unscheduled stop information .. more on that too of the Southwest Flight.. turned out to be true.. in all my years of flying never happened before. :) well I need to go. :) get a battery
OMG, yesterday morning I spent two hours trying to get to a live person at Xfinity. Later their AI texted me to ask how my experience was. In the afternoon, I was notified that I could no longer just use direct deposit with my HOA. I would have to pay through some other group with a new account and password. I also gave up yesterday on trying to cancel some Amazon subscriptions. At 7 am today, I’m loading up with coffee before I try once again to deal with Prudential. I’ll probably have to decide which childhood friend was my favorite or explain that I don’t have a nickname. It’s all a full- time job.
🙌🙌 You wrote the funniest possible version of a genuinely dark structural point, which is probably the only reason people will let themselves absorb it. The line that should keep everyone up at night is your own: you're not the customer standing in the rain, you're the inventory. The parking app loses money on parking. It makes money on you. Once you see that the product is your behavior and the parking is just the delivery mechanism, every "convenience fee" snaps into focus. It was never convenient. It was the toll for handing over the data.
The fridge is the same trick in a different coat. A dumb fridge is a thing you own. A smart fridge is a relationship you rent, and relationships can be ended by the other party. Rakesh didn't kill the ice maker. The business model did. He just works there. This is the exact machinery I spend my time pulling apart over on my own publication, minus the jokes, which are better than mine.
That's great. I've been trying to weigh the people that are contacting me about working together with the fact that I've really only been promoting my publication for 3 months and I don't want to Promise Too Much we might have to talk about some advice for me
Thanks for explaining "you're the inventory" for those of us who've resisted any technology not absolutely necessary. A very long time ago, someone recommended staying out of the system and it turns out it was a good idea, though often a lonely and inconvenient path.
Someone's new smart trashcan wanted his email address and paid subscription to open itself whenever he needs to take the trash out. What twilight zone fuquery is this?
And once again, everything digital and everything app soon becomes everything micropayments.
So-called "modern monetary theory" kinda believes that the state (and everyone else) trying to extort your hard-earned tokens on every step is what gives the "money" value (no, seriously. "Money has value because you have to pay taxes" is their selling point.). And at this point, there isn't much difference between taxes and other unavoidable payments anymore.
I dunno, I prefer things that possess value by themselves.
Two slot toasters were created for a reason. One smartphone in each slot, push the button down and badda bing badda boom just like that your smartphone becomes toast. 😁
That happened when I was in a Hospital garage.. Somehow the TICKET I got from the Garage.. told the door to open. I was like wut? that was in the VA hospital center.. how did it communicate with the gate? very late a night.. we thought we were stuck in the Garage.. for the night. a lady used her "ticket/card" to open the gate.
Oof. The subtle temptations (to certain dishonest people) of these systems seems like entrapment . .like MartlaW has a camera in your face . . but that camera is a distraction really. The important cameras are above you recording every movement. (Maybe everyone knows this by now.) The parking lot that doesn't have a gate and lets people who are less honest drive on through. . . I wonder what would have happened to the driver if the passenger's phone had not "auto paid" (without her consent). No doubt the license plate readers are there, she would have been billed or worse.
I was a that parent that set off out with my kids to go shopping, school or to our caravan with NO TECH it was 12 years of happy living. Our kids grew up without a device in their hand, they actually played out on bikes, climes trees (one broke her wrist in the process) they got excited when the new Argos catalogue came out circling what they wanted for Christmas.
I feel we have lost something that was genuine, what memories are parents making with their kids today if the child’s world is on a screen?
Sunday’s were the best, I’d feed the kiddo’s then sit to read my newspaper front to back that was my treat then I’d start the Sunday roast, we always sat at the table for our Sunday dinners (no tv allowed) before bath time me & my husband would either play a board game with the kids or watch a film we rented from the video/dvd shop where the kids got to pick a film & of coarse the sweets they wanted to eat while watching. We all looked forward to a family Sunday, I look at families I know nowadays & it’s like most have lost the genuine connection 😢 I’ve noticed it’s only poor families who aren’t tied to the household tech, their kids still play out, the parents go on walks with them they’re the ones still living like we did because they can’t afford a PS5 for each child, a tv in every room the best phones, ultra fast internet to run everything as well as streaming films to every room of the house.
Question is how is all this tech going to affect the next generation? I think we have been shown in films & series where it’s going & no I don’t think they were warning us they were introducing us to be ready for it.
Can't we relate!?! And don't forget, dear Lily-Rose, your many friends and fans out here somewhere in the blue (some even that pray for you and WW) are right here with you. God knows!
The Great News is this wackiness is crashing-down; not upon us but upon 'them', as we and the entire unified world reaches the first-ever Global Saeculum. Yep! God's Heavenly Clock is one 'click' from MIDNIGHT!
No, not The End, but the brand New Beginning the Apostle Paul referred to as, "The Fullness of Time" in Ephesians 1:8-10. Read it and weep, for JOY!
Stay precious in His Sight and ours, Lily-Rose, and KNOW that both you and WW are "Loved with an Everlasting Neverending Love" that no technology nor toaster will ever change.♡♡♡
I have the perfect antidote for your toaster! I take it when I go camping, to make sure I can pitch my tent. It is a lovely hand-held sludge hammer. Take your toaster tdo your garage or nearest concrete patio. One solid blow on top, and one on each side. It's toast!
Love it, thanks: "What I Actually Want: I want to be a person in a place. That is the entire demand."
I have a sociologiical theory for that, linked to in Other Works on my substack: "A Needs-Based Partial Theory of Human Injustice," which identifies that what is known as mechanistic dehumanization, like oppression and exploitation, combine to product systematic inequality in our access to satisfiers of our human needs, and violate our human rights to boot.
Loved it Lily 👍 I remember as a kid going to the store with my father and we saw calculators for sale for the first time, $100. That was a lot of money back then. My dad looked at it and said “I wish I could have one. It would make my life so much easier with balancing my checkbook.” Person who worked there came up and said, “Would you like one? They’re really marvelous. Pretty soon everyone will own one.” I thought to myself no way, that’s never going to happen! No look at our society 🙄 all glued to tech of all kinds. Even the hat, reads your thoughts… https://www.wired.com/story/this-beanie-is-designed-to-read-your-thoughts/ “California-based startup Sabi is developing a thought-to-text wearable that could usher in the cyborg future.” Who needs a QVC code when you can just put a hat on, right? 😫
He didn't say, “What if customers had to log in to discover that we serve mozzarella sticks?” He said “What if customers had to log in to discover how much we're going to charge them for mozzarella sticks?” Dynamic pricing.
There's a restaurant in Brussels where there is no menu: the owner comes to the table and tells you what they have. The "Buiten Verwachting" in Boutersem has its menu on a blackboard, because you get what was fresh at the market that day. These are restaurants I do.
My chest freezer was my mum's and I inherited it when she passed in 2009. I'd helped fetch it when she bought it secondhand from someone in Harrogate, using the van of a friend who ran an engineering company when I was 14. This year, it has been in our family's possession for 50 years and it doesn't know it ever left the old country. I pray every time I need to switch it on, so there is, I have to admit, a cloud connection.
yeah the dynamic pricing this is peak cringe. i just watched a hacker on youtube that figured out a way to change the prices using bluetooth of those dynamic price tags. he got 8000 bucks worth of stuff for a grand. lol
But seriously, we got used to thinking that asking for our e-mail was simply a ruse to send us "occasional offers". We can always decline occasional offers, or direct them to junk.
But now, that's less "it". Our identity is used not just to market stuff to us, but to determine how much it is we will pay for it. And I'm not entirely sure how "No, thank you" translates into a price the next time something's offered. iPhone is the access point to the world? Well, it is, but it's also the world's access point to you.
I use a lot of cash.
Exquisite.
Dynamic pricing is really fun when you are buying Airplane tickets.. refresh and you had another 100 bucks. :) a bidding war.. IN THEORY ;) for that seat. uh huh.. so the CRAZY red head was giving out unscheduled stop information .. more on that too of the Southwest Flight.. turned out to be true.. in all my years of flying never happened before. :) well I need to go. :) get a battery
I live off-grid, maka and store solar power, my reefer is a 10 year old unit that runs on propane and I get one country station on the radio.
Guess I'm kinda of a failure.
No, not a failure. It sounds dreamy compared to digital tyranny
According to Cheech and Chong I thought reefers ran on smoke. 😂
Burning gasses make my reefer fun, I mean, run.
OMG, yesterday morning I spent two hours trying to get to a live person at Xfinity. Later their AI texted me to ask how my experience was. In the afternoon, I was notified that I could no longer just use direct deposit with my HOA. I would have to pay through some other group with a new account and password. I also gave up yesterday on trying to cancel some Amazon subscriptions. At 7 am today, I’m loading up with coffee before I try once again to deal with Prudential. I’ll probably have to decide which childhood friend was my favorite or explain that I don’t have a nickname. It’s all a full- time job.
🙌🙌 You wrote the funniest possible version of a genuinely dark structural point, which is probably the only reason people will let themselves absorb it. The line that should keep everyone up at night is your own: you're not the customer standing in the rain, you're the inventory. The parking app loses money on parking. It makes money on you. Once you see that the product is your behavior and the parking is just the delivery mechanism, every "convenience fee" snaps into focus. It was never convenient. It was the toll for handing over the data.
The fridge is the same trick in a different coat. A dumb fridge is a thing you own. A smart fridge is a relationship you rent, and relationships can be ended by the other party. Rakesh didn't kill the ice maker. The business model did. He just works there. This is the exact machinery I spend my time pulling apart over on my own publication, minus the jokes, which are better than mine.
yeah lily is awesome. hopefully we start making enough that i can hire her full time in the next year.
That's great. I've been trying to weigh the people that are contacting me about working together with the fact that I've really only been promoting my publication for 3 months and I don't want to Promise Too Much we might have to talk about some advice for me
Thanks for explaining "you're the inventory" for those of us who've resisted any technology not absolutely necessary. A very long time ago, someone recommended staying out of the system and it turns out it was a good idea, though often a lonely and inconvenient path.
I've been through the parking meter thing! Love this article Lily🤪
Someone's new smart trashcan wanted his email address and paid subscription to open itself whenever he needs to take the trash out. What twilight zone fuquery is this?
And once again, everything digital and everything app soon becomes everything micropayments.
So-called "modern monetary theory" kinda believes that the state (and everyone else) trying to extort your hard-earned tokens on every step is what gives the "money" value (no, seriously. "Money has value because you have to pay taxes" is their selling point.). And at this point, there isn't much difference between taxes and other unavoidable payments anymore.
I dunno, I prefer things that possess value by themselves.
Two slot toasters were created for a reason. One smartphone in each slot, push the button down and badda bing badda boom just like that your smartphone becomes toast. 😁
Nice, but my toaster tongs on a grill plate over the stove burner.
On the subject of parking, I saw this yesterday, which takes the inherently dystopian concept of digital surveillance to a whole new level
https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/2078109967362543927/video/1?s=46
That happened when I was in a Hospital garage.. Somehow the TICKET I got from the Garage.. told the door to open. I was like wut? that was in the VA hospital center.. how did it communicate with the gate? very late a night.. we thought we were stuck in the Garage.. for the night. a lady used her "ticket/card" to open the gate.
Oof. The subtle temptations (to certain dishonest people) of these systems seems like entrapment . .like MartlaW has a camera in your face . . but that camera is a distraction really. The important cameras are above you recording every movement. (Maybe everyone knows this by now.) The parking lot that doesn't have a gate and lets people who are less honest drive on through. . . I wonder what would have happened to the driver if the passenger's phone had not "auto paid" (without her consent). No doubt the license plate readers are there, she would have been billed or worse.
I was a that parent that set off out with my kids to go shopping, school or to our caravan with NO TECH it was 12 years of happy living. Our kids grew up without a device in their hand, they actually played out on bikes, climes trees (one broke her wrist in the process) they got excited when the new Argos catalogue came out circling what they wanted for Christmas.
I feel we have lost something that was genuine, what memories are parents making with their kids today if the child’s world is on a screen?
Sunday’s were the best, I’d feed the kiddo’s then sit to read my newspaper front to back that was my treat then I’d start the Sunday roast, we always sat at the table for our Sunday dinners (no tv allowed) before bath time me & my husband would either play a board game with the kids or watch a film we rented from the video/dvd shop where the kids got to pick a film & of coarse the sweets they wanted to eat while watching. We all looked forward to a family Sunday, I look at families I know nowadays & it’s like most have lost the genuine connection 😢 I’ve noticed it’s only poor families who aren’t tied to the household tech, their kids still play out, the parents go on walks with them they’re the ones still living like we did because they can’t afford a PS5 for each child, a tv in every room the best phones, ultra fast internet to run everything as well as streaming films to every room of the house.
Question is how is all this tech going to affect the next generation? I think we have been shown in films & series where it’s going & no I don’t think they were warning us they were introducing us to be ready for it.
Can't we relate!?! And don't forget, dear Lily-Rose, your many friends and fans out here somewhere in the blue (some even that pray for you and WW) are right here with you. God knows!
The Great News is this wackiness is crashing-down; not upon us but upon 'them', as we and the entire unified world reaches the first-ever Global Saeculum. Yep! God's Heavenly Clock is one 'click' from MIDNIGHT!
No, not The End, but the brand New Beginning the Apostle Paul referred to as, "The Fullness of Time" in Ephesians 1:8-10. Read it and weep, for JOY!
Stay precious in His Sight and ours, Lily-Rose, and KNOW that both you and WW are "Loved with an Everlasting Neverending Love" that no technology nor toaster will ever change.♡♡♡
P.S. For all the "Show me your sources" humans, my favorite is @blkshpbible (Black Sheep Bible), "Midnight Is Here."
I park at the nearby church
I have the perfect antidote for your toaster! I take it when I go camping, to make sure I can pitch my tent. It is a lovely hand-held sludge hammer. Take your toaster tdo your garage or nearest concrete patio. One solid blow on top, and one on each side. It's toast!
Love it, thanks: "What I Actually Want: I want to be a person in a place. That is the entire demand."
I have a sociologiical theory for that, linked to in Other Works on my substack: "A Needs-Based Partial Theory of Human Injustice," which identifies that what is known as mechanistic dehumanization, like oppression and exploitation, combine to product systematic inequality in our access to satisfiers of our human needs, and violate our human rights to boot.
I get really sick of having to remember all the user names and passwords to these unnecessary accounts.
It’s all about information mining. It all goes to giant data storage centers that will soon be running on nuclear power.
I miss the old days too!
Loved it Lily 👍 I remember as a kid going to the store with my father and we saw calculators for sale for the first time, $100. That was a lot of money back then. My dad looked at it and said “I wish I could have one. It would make my life so much easier with balancing my checkbook.” Person who worked there came up and said, “Would you like one? They’re really marvelous. Pretty soon everyone will own one.” I thought to myself no way, that’s never going to happen! No look at our society 🙄 all glued to tech of all kinds. Even the hat, reads your thoughts… https://www.wired.com/story/this-beanie-is-designed-to-read-your-thoughts/ “California-based startup Sabi is developing a thought-to-text wearable that could usher in the cyborg future.” Who needs a QVC code when you can just put a hat on, right? 😫
I crack up every time I read your article’s! You are an amazing writer!