Post by @mxchara@cyberpunk.lol

2026-10-23 06:14 UTC

But wait! the reader may cry. Isn't #capitalism good at this one thing at least--providing variety? Doesn't "the market" have everything for every conceivable need? Well, no, it doesn't. But for now I'll concede that "the market" in general, meaning the global marketplace of everything's that's salable, contains an enormous variety of products of all sorts. But only a very thin sliver of that great variety is chosen to be distributed in the United States as "consumer goods", the sort of thing that ends up in local shops. What about Internet sales? you might ask. Well...about that #Amazon stuff... (more)

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@mxchara@cyberpunk.lol 2026-10-23 06:20

...it's true that if I had a leaky faucet or cranky toilet I could go online to find many more options for parts and fittings than might be available in a "brick and mortar" shop. But there's a high cost of access and extreme inequality when it comes to Internet access. And merely having Internet access isn't enough! One must also have a reliable place to get mail. Thanks to decades of disgusting right-wing treachery and hatred of public services, the U.S. Post Office has never been less reliable. The #conservatives' loathing of the USPS has been a gift to Internet shippers: by starving and corrupting the Post Office, U.S. governments cleared the way for #tech startups to sell themselves as more "efficient" and certainly faster at shipping things. (etc.)

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