Subscriptions, Now with Surge Pricing

Not there yet, but keep your eye on the rising cost of everything

Worse: You won’t be allowed to own anything

A brief story: One day about ten years ago, my wife and I were walking through a department store which was showcasing a new technology in their store.

Gone were the hand-made or laser-printed signs which use to show you the price or the sale price of the item in question. Replacing them were digital displays which could be read into a smartphone and inventory system.

Seeing this technology, I had a sinister chill run through my body. What if I were a terribly mercantile enterprise, bent on maximizing profits without morality or conscience? What would I do with this confluence of technologies?

Not naming any names. But you know who you are.

I thought about a world where all of these technologies, the ability to find or secure a natural resource, to the shipping of that resource, to the manufacture of that resource, the carting away of the toxic wastes, the distribution of the materials for production, and then the final product shipped to stores — all of that information digitized, quantized, and quantified.