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It seems like every time consumers automate against the-powers-that-be, the powers change the rules.

- Can’t just cancel credit cards to reset subscriptions/memberships, because new card info now gets forwarded to your vendors.

- Chargebacks are now much less successful, even when the consumer has clearly been wronged.



I think a lot of "let's use technology to solve a social problem" takes forget to assume that both sides have access to technology.


This is not lost on me [1] [2]. I am a technologist (and hacker at heart), but also behind the scenes in politics (outcomes > status). I've commented, quite frequently here, that you cannot fix political and social issues with tech: wrong OSI layer of the stack. But, this change takes time, months, years, sometimes half a decade or more (election cycles, and then policy implementation lag). In the meantime, tactical solutions require technology, and that is what I am proposing in my top subthread comment.

Politics are strategic, long term system improvements. Technology serves for tactical solutions in the near term.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40346506

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28571755


The end of the rip-off economy: consumers use LLMs against information asymmetry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45748195 - October 2025




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