Yes, agreed and exactly - and now Amazon's "price history" AI button helps Amazon keep shoppers from using independent (more reliable) tools.

I think what makes this worse is that Camel Camel Camel may not be able to even function in a surveillance pricing world. It requires an objective same-price basis, and once surveillance pricing algorithmically re-prices for each shopper, a single-point third party can no longer track the price reliably for everyone.

Then the reason why surveillance price tracking is so unrealistic is because shoppers would need to actively submit and refresh their pricing for any comparison site to be valid, and that just isn't going to happen.

I think unfortunately that overestimates the amount of information and discernment shoppers exercise, versus doorbuster/marketed deals and brand loyalty. Going back to net neutrality, "disclosure" just meant that fine print would be used to disclose, along with false "benefits" like saying you get "free" Netflix data on your cell plan, to sell it as a feature.

When you are online, as well, you will have no idea what anyone else is paying. The retailer will completely control the information environment unless consumers put forth an unrealistic, disproportionate amount of time to compare prices.

Disclosure is not how you kill stuff like this, it's how opposition to this dies.

They are going to "enforce" disclosure rules but not enforce to prevent the substantive harms of surveillance pricing. It's framed (and many stories and readers and commenters run with the narrative) that it's a restriction, when it's actually a permission. This means that unlike the direction Lina Khan's FTC was taking to prevent surveillance pricing, it is saying to companies, "It's fine to surveillance price as long as you disclose." Meaning, open season.

It's the difference between, for example, enforcing actual net neutrality versus enforcing "disclosure" about violating net neutrality.

Deathbed repentance, Republicans love it. Think it's their cheat code to sell their souls for money and power and not be damned.

The story and headline are pushing a narrative that hides what is happening.

The FTC made sure we didn't call it "surveillance pricing" and shifted from prevention to disclosure.

https://prospect.org/2026/08/21/ftc-says-it-will-enforce-surveillance-pricing-it-wont/

May their eBay listings all sell at losses, and may they all get unremovable painful splinters that take years to fall out.

In the US, a minor cannot enter into binding contracts without the parents co-signing, and the T&Cs argument here is almost certainly going to be rejected by a court. They are just throwing spaghetti at the wall and being corporate litigation counsel - i.e., leaving no hour unbilled.

At least in the US, you have a very narrow window to cancel and then you're stuck with it, unless you pay a huge premium for a refundable ticket. But I agree, practically-speaking, the only solution in a late-stage capitalist marketplace is to create some crowdsourced pricing information to identify pricing outliers. Which, truly, isn't a good solution.

If we had a functional government, this would be regulated/prohibited on an emergency basis, since in theory government is supposed to represent people and not corporations. Unfortunately, in 2026, we're livestock to herd and fleece.

The theory on The Other Site is what I also agree with: They took #1, fed it into an AI 3D modeler to get #4, fed that image into a 2D style AI model to get #2, and then went back to #4 and used AI in-painting and lazy Photoshop to remove some elements to get #3.

Slower technologies like Starlink. Yup.

This year alone, the United States is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025.

Ignoring the Iran war for a moment, because that's just hubris and ego, the real systematic theft is Republicans cutting taxes predominantly on the rich, because even their strategy to use that as a wedge to shrink government is itself a bad faith argument. Really, the GOP will never successfully reduce government spending even if they were able to cut entitlements.

Instead, what is happening is that tax cuts are just another transfer of wealth from poor to rich, because when borrowing and money-printing is used to pay debts incurred due to tax-cut-driven shortfalls, that devaluation of dollars obliterates currency savings and "wealth" more severely to those who hold cash rather than investments and property.

The richest people, whose holdings are not in straight US currency, are cushioned against the biggest impacts, which means they own a larger relative percent of post-devaluation wealth.

This doesn't seem sarcastic.

/s

This story really isn't more complicated than: psychopaths like power and attention.

She and he have a mutually beneficial symbiosis where she lavishes him with attention and he lavishes her with access to power.

Not exactly novel for Trump.

It's giving me a headache, unfortunately.

Sorry, all our steam is being used to build aircraft carrier catapults.

"Not Found" error. From the link, I assume you're deeplinking to a temporary/personal tokenized download.

What is the x-axis on this chart? Time?

OpenAI said it will discontinue Sora, the generative-AI video creation platform it launched in late 2024, without providing a reason for the decision.

That is the strongest indication this is the beginning of the end for the AI bubble. Sora burned a ton of processing power, with no clear value proposition, just to keep the hype cycle going a little longer. Shutting down without explanation leaves the most likely one: they are out of helium to pump into the balloon. And if that balloon isn't inflating, it's deflating.

Relatedly, Hisense also forces updates and disables use of the TV if you do not accept the update (via a full screen non-cancelable prompt).

I learned this the hard way after Hisense broke my TV via an update that I didn't want and then refused to fix it even after 6 months of escalations and emails.

It's actually very easy to have the number off and still get full functionality.

I just made a 100 page booklet that shows each battery level graphic alongside the percentage, so when I want to check my battery level, I just pull out the book and flip back and forth until I find the right icon, and bam! I know my exact battery level in less than 5 minutes.