Post #4154558

2026-07-28 03:25 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.social/@kottke/116994028497632581 ❝The late Soviet Union was damned by the iconic image of people waiting in endless lines for scarce consumer goods. When we look back at the dying days of America, perhaps we’ll think of waiting in dots, surrounded by plentiful products locked away because our bosses fear and loathe us so much they have forgotten how selling things works.❞ This piece is fire.

Replies (4)

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org 2026-07-28 03:37

@inthehands@hachyderm.io Wow! Expensive! I'm going to have to start re-using my toothpaste! 🤪

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@kauer@aus.social 2026-07-28 04:00

@inthehands@hachyderm.io "dots"? ss;dr... (sorry, substack; didnt read)

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@riley@toot.cat 2026-07-28 06:30

@inthehands@hachyderm.io It's not about selling skills in a single place. It's about doing Taylorist "efficiency" pervasively through the supply chain, but not at the individual-person-on-the-market level. This combination selectively strips individual people of their economic slack, and, well, it turns out that widespread economic slack is actually necessary for general welfare. Universally localised "efficiency" is mostly bullshit.

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@qole@techhub.social 2026-07-28 07:02

@inthehands@hachyderm.io Absolutely fascinating. This never happened in Canada. Shelves in pharmacies and hardware stores are still mostly plexiglass free, especially for low value items like toothpaste. I find it hard to believe that US stores lock up toothpaste!

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