This is not the world that Adam Smith envisaged –
Jacob Silverman’s thought-provoking piece in the Washington Post:
“We are told that this
is the era of the empowered consumer: The savvy shopper has oodles of time to
browse around, comparing prices among various retailers, perhaps consulting
Yelp, Glassdoor or the Better Business Bureau. … Better information means more
competition, which means lower prices — all features, of course, of an open
marketplace ostensibly presided over by a regulatory authority that, while
distant, exists to protect our safety.
This vision is a lie.
Air travel is the most concentrated version of an essentially authoritarian
experience that can be found throughout today’s economy. We live, work, shop,
and travel under a system of grossly asymmetric power relationships, in which
consumers sign away most of their rights just by purchasing a ticket and
companies deputize themselves to enforce contracts with hired goons.”