#rentism — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #rentism, aggregated by home.social.
-
"In recent weeks, Amazon has changed how it pays out seller earnings and collects payments for its advertising services. The company then announced it would start charging merchants a 3.5% fuel surcharge to offset surging oil prices from the Iran war.
To some sellers, the moves represent another example of Amazon putting the squeeze on them.
“We’re running out of f---ing margin,” said Michael Patrón, who runs an eight-figure Amazon business and frequently criticizes the company’s policies on his X account. “I think that’s why it keeps getting more and more frustrating.”
Patrón and hundreds of large Amazon sellers are boycotting its advertising platform on Wednesday to protest the recent policy changes that are strangling their already stretched bottom lines.
The 24-hour advertising boycott is being organized by Million Dollar Sellers, a community of more than 700 members that collectively generate about $14 billion in revenue.
“Sellers have complained for years, but this feels different,” MDS co-founder Eugene Khayman said in a post on X about the boycott. “The reason is simple: this is no longer just about irritation. It is about cash extraction.”"
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/amazon-sellers-boycott-ads-payment-changes.html
-
"In recent weeks, Amazon has changed how it pays out seller earnings and collects payments for its advertising services. The company then announced it would start charging merchants a 3.5% fuel surcharge to offset surging oil prices from the Iran war.
To some sellers, the moves represent another example of Amazon putting the squeeze on them.
“We’re running out of f---ing margin,” said Michael Patrón, who runs an eight-figure Amazon business and frequently criticizes the company’s policies on his X account. “I think that’s why it keeps getting more and more frustrating.”
Patrón and hundreds of large Amazon sellers are boycotting its advertising platform on Wednesday to protest the recent policy changes that are strangling their already stretched bottom lines.
The 24-hour advertising boycott is being organized by Million Dollar Sellers, a community of more than 700 members that collectively generate about $14 billion in revenue.
“Sellers have complained for years, but this feels different,” MDS co-founder Eugene Khayman said in a post on X about the boycott. “The reason is simple: this is no longer just about irritation. It is about cash extraction.”"
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/amazon-sellers-boycott-ads-payment-changes.html
-
"In recent weeks, Amazon has changed how it pays out seller earnings and collects payments for its advertising services. The company then announced it would start charging merchants a 3.5% fuel surcharge to offset surging oil prices from the Iran war.
To some sellers, the moves represent another example of Amazon putting the squeeze on them.
“We’re running out of f---ing margin,” said Michael Patrón, who runs an eight-figure Amazon business and frequently criticizes the company’s policies on his X account. “I think that’s why it keeps getting more and more frustrating.”
Patrón and hundreds of large Amazon sellers are boycotting its advertising platform on Wednesday to protest the recent policy changes that are strangling their already stretched bottom lines.
The 24-hour advertising boycott is being organized by Million Dollar Sellers, a community of more than 700 members that collectively generate about $14 billion in revenue.
“Sellers have complained for years, but this feels different,” MDS co-founder Eugene Khayman said in a post on X about the boycott. “The reason is simple: this is no longer just about irritation. It is about cash extraction.”"
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/amazon-sellers-boycott-ads-payment-changes.html
-
"In recent weeks, Amazon has changed how it pays out seller earnings and collects payments for its advertising services. The company then announced it would start charging merchants a 3.5% fuel surcharge to offset surging oil prices from the Iran war.
To some sellers, the moves represent another example of Amazon putting the squeeze on them.
“We’re running out of f---ing margin,” said Michael Patrón, who runs an eight-figure Amazon business and frequently criticizes the company’s policies on his X account. “I think that’s why it keeps getting more and more frustrating.”
Patrón and hundreds of large Amazon sellers are boycotting its advertising platform on Wednesday to protest the recent policy changes that are strangling their already stretched bottom lines.
The 24-hour advertising boycott is being organized by Million Dollar Sellers, a community of more than 700 members that collectively generate about $14 billion in revenue.
“Sellers have complained for years, but this feels different,” MDS co-founder Eugene Khayman said in a post on X about the boycott. “The reason is simple: this is no longer just about irritation. It is about cash extraction.”"
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/amazon-sellers-boycott-ads-payment-changes.html
-
"In recent weeks, Amazon has changed how it pays out seller earnings and collects payments for its advertising services. The company then announced it would start charging merchants a 3.5% fuel surcharge to offset surging oil prices from the Iran war.
To some sellers, the moves represent another example of Amazon putting the squeeze on them.
“We’re running out of f---ing margin,” said Michael Patrón, who runs an eight-figure Amazon business and frequently criticizes the company’s policies on his X account. “I think that’s why it keeps getting more and more frustrating.”
Patrón and hundreds of large Amazon sellers are boycotting its advertising platform on Wednesday to protest the recent policy changes that are strangling their already stretched bottom lines.
The 24-hour advertising boycott is being organized by Million Dollar Sellers, a community of more than 700 members that collectively generate about $14 billion in revenue.
“Sellers have complained for years, but this feels different,” MDS co-founder Eugene Khayman said in a post on X about the boycott. “The reason is simple: this is no longer just about irritation. It is about cash extraction.”"
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/amazon-sellers-boycott-ads-payment-changes.html
-
"In 2023, the city of Evanston, Illinois raised its ambulance fee from $1500 to $2000, with a $15 mileage charge tacked on. Like many municipalities, city officials and taxpayers have gotten used to ever-increasing prices for basic services, all bucketed under the “cost of living” crisis we’re dealing with. In fact, yesterday the Michigan University consumer sentiment indicator hit the worst reading it has ever recorded, going all the way back to 1961. The endless increases in prices for all sorts of random necessities is a key reason.
But these cost hikes don’t just ‘happen,’ as if it’s some sort of natural event. Markets are a function of law. There are companies and dealers and financiers behind every industry, so we can actually try to understand why they are happening. In this case, Evanston chalked up the hike to, among other things, the increasing of “cost of equipment and vehicles used for emergency responses.” The ambulance market, once a decentralized set of family owned firms, has been rolled up into a consolidated industry run by private equity. And the price hikes followed.
This story isn’t unusual. In early 2025, BIG traced a roll-up of fire trucks and fire apparatus, leading to a crisis in that sector. It turns out that something similar seems to have happened here, with some of the same players."
#USA #Emergency #Ambluances #Monopolies #Rentism #PrivateEquities
-
"In 2023, the city of Evanston, Illinois raised its ambulance fee from $1500 to $2000, with a $15 mileage charge tacked on. Like many municipalities, city officials and taxpayers have gotten used to ever-increasing prices for basic services, all bucketed under the “cost of living” crisis we’re dealing with. In fact, yesterday the Michigan University consumer sentiment indicator hit the worst reading it has ever recorded, going all the way back to 1961. The endless increases in prices for all sorts of random necessities is a key reason.
But these cost hikes don’t just ‘happen,’ as if it’s some sort of natural event. Markets are a function of law. There are companies and dealers and financiers behind every industry, so we can actually try to understand why they are happening. In this case, Evanston chalked up the hike to, among other things, the increasing of “cost of equipment and vehicles used for emergency responses.” The ambulance market, once a decentralized set of family owned firms, has been rolled up into a consolidated industry run by private equity. And the price hikes followed.
This story isn’t unusual. In early 2025, BIG traced a roll-up of fire trucks and fire apparatus, leading to a crisis in that sector. It turns out that something similar seems to have happened here, with some of the same players."
#USA #Emergency #Ambluances #Monopolies #Rentism #PrivateEquities
-
"In 2023, the city of Evanston, Illinois raised its ambulance fee from $1500 to $2000, with a $15 mileage charge tacked on. Like many municipalities, city officials and taxpayers have gotten used to ever-increasing prices for basic services, all bucketed under the “cost of living” crisis we’re dealing with. In fact, yesterday the Michigan University consumer sentiment indicator hit the worst reading it has ever recorded, going all the way back to 1961. The endless increases in prices for all sorts of random necessities is a key reason.
But these cost hikes don’t just ‘happen,’ as if it’s some sort of natural event. Markets are a function of law. There are companies and dealers and financiers behind every industry, so we can actually try to understand why they are happening. In this case, Evanston chalked up the hike to, among other things, the increasing of “cost of equipment and vehicles used for emergency responses.” The ambulance market, once a decentralized set of family owned firms, has been rolled up into a consolidated industry run by private equity. And the price hikes followed.
This story isn’t unusual. In early 2025, BIG traced a roll-up of fire trucks and fire apparatus, leading to a crisis in that sector. It turns out that something similar seems to have happened here, with some of the same players."
#USA #Emergency #Ambluances #Monopolies #Rentism #PrivateEquities
-
"In 2023, the city of Evanston, Illinois raised its ambulance fee from $1500 to $2000, with a $15 mileage charge tacked on. Like many municipalities, city officials and taxpayers have gotten used to ever-increasing prices for basic services, all bucketed under the “cost of living” crisis we’re dealing with. In fact, yesterday the Michigan University consumer sentiment indicator hit the worst reading it has ever recorded, going all the way back to 1961. The endless increases in prices for all sorts of random necessities is a key reason.
But these cost hikes don’t just ‘happen,’ as if it’s some sort of natural event. Markets are a function of law. There are companies and dealers and financiers behind every industry, so we can actually try to understand why they are happening. In this case, Evanston chalked up the hike to, among other things, the increasing of “cost of equipment and vehicles used for emergency responses.” The ambulance market, once a decentralized set of family owned firms, has been rolled up into a consolidated industry run by private equity. And the price hikes followed.
This story isn’t unusual. In early 2025, BIG traced a roll-up of fire trucks and fire apparatus, leading to a crisis in that sector. It turns out that something similar seems to have happened here, with some of the same players."
#USA #Emergency #Ambluances #Monopolies #Rentism #PrivateEquities
-
"In 2023, the city of Evanston, Illinois raised its ambulance fee from $1500 to $2000, with a $15 mileage charge tacked on. Like many municipalities, city officials and taxpayers have gotten used to ever-increasing prices for basic services, all bucketed under the “cost of living” crisis we’re dealing with. In fact, yesterday the Michigan University consumer sentiment indicator hit the worst reading it has ever recorded, going all the way back to 1961. The endless increases in prices for all sorts of random necessities is a key reason.
But these cost hikes don’t just ‘happen,’ as if it’s some sort of natural event. Markets are a function of law. There are companies and dealers and financiers behind every industry, so we can actually try to understand why they are happening. In this case, Evanston chalked up the hike to, among other things, the increasing of “cost of equipment and vehicles used for emergency responses.” The ambulance market, once a decentralized set of family owned firms, has been rolled up into a consolidated industry run by private equity. And the price hikes followed.
This story isn’t unusual. In early 2025, BIG traced a roll-up of fire trucks and fire apparatus, leading to a crisis in that sector. It turns out that something similar seems to have happened here, with some of the same players."
#USA #Emergency #Ambluances #Monopolies #Rentism #PrivateEquities
-
So-called "artists" in favor of monopoly rights and endless rent extraction. What else is new?
"Every invention has brought predictions of copyright’s demise: the daguerreotype, the phonograph, radio, cassettes, home video and the internet. All those predictions were premature, and Britain’s soft power flourished as a result.
A belief has taken hold that progress can’t happen without the abolition of some of our oldest rights. That it’s only theft when individuals steal. That corporations don’t steal, they innovate. If you believe all this, you might as well stock your bookshelves with fantasy."
https://www.ft.com/content/48532284-9244-4ee6-be46-f3bde22b7232
#AI #GenerativeAI #AITraining #Copyrght #Monopolies #Rentism #RentExtraction -
"Prices have been rising across the economy in ways that are both visible and opaque. There are short-term drivers of inflation due to President Trump’s mismanagement of the economy. But the deeper drivers result from the degradation of capitalism.
For example, the lethal combination of digital technology and tech monopolies picks your pocket in countless ways. Instead of technical advances leading to greater convenience and lower cost, as they logically should, they create strategies for opportunistic price hikes.
When Amazon uses its deep knowledge of consumer preferences to rig markets and undermine competitors, higher prices are passed along. When HP makes it illegal or impossible for consumers to use cheaper non-HP cartridges in their printers, it can charge exorbitant prices. If you are prohibited from repairing your own car or your own iPhone, or as a farmer, prohibited from saving seed for next year’s planting, that invites monopoly profits built on higher prices. Costs rise because the rules are rigged.
It isn’t just the increasing cost of health insurance, but the tax on your time when a health system of byzantine complexity requires you to waste hours to get a simple referral or get a claim paid. Middlemen and algorithms, both in the business of denying claims, are a direct cost to the system and a source of rising out-of-pocket prices to patients. If insurance doesn’t pay, you do. These middlemen also function as a drain on doctor time and thus a tax on doctors’ incomes, as well as a debasement of medical services
In this special issue of the Prospect, we take stock of several hidden drivers of rising costs. David Dayen explores all the ways that technology allows sellers of any product that uses the internet to take advantage of surveillance capitalism to personalize prices and charge more than the market price..."
https://prospect.org/2025/12/01/sources-of-americas-hidden-inflation/
#USA #Rentism #Inflation #Economy #PoliticalEconomy #Monopolies #Antitrust #Oligopolies #IP #Competition
-
That's the difference between the fair deal and fair use approaches to copyright exemptions. Fair deal means that copyright holders can steal from the commons of public knowledge and culture to extract rents for decades. "The public? Who cares about it? WE WANT FREE MONEY FOR DECADES"
"The Albanese government has explicitly ruled out handing tech companies free rein to mine creative content to train their artificial intelligence models, after a fierce backlash from authors and from arts and media groups.
The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, will confirm the decision on Monday, shutting the door on a contentious proposal floated by the Productivity Commission and backed by tech companies.
“Australian creatives are not only world class, but they are also the lifeblood of Australian culture, and we must ensure the right legal protections are in place,” Rowland said.
The commission sparked outrage in August after its interim report on “harnessing data and the digital economy” suggested granting an exemption to copyright laws that would effectively allow technology companies free access to content to train their AI models.
Weeks earlier, Scott Farquhar, the co-founder of software giant Atlassian and the chair of the Tech Council of Australia, told the National Press Club that “fixing” the existing restrictions could “unlock billions of dollars of foreign investment into Australia”."
#AI #GenerativeAI #Australia #Copyright #FairDeal #IP #Rentism #Rents #IP
-
"I was never sold on Starmer’s Labour delivering sunlit uplands. He doesn’t have a theory of change, or policies commensurate with the challenges he often acknowledges. But even I was shocked when it was revealed that Rushanara Ali, the now former Minister for Homelessness, had evicted four tenants from her East London property only to re-list it for an additional £700 a month. Besides that, the agents acting on her behalf initially tried to charge the evictees nearly £2,000 to redecorate, and an additional sum for professional cleaning. Under the Tenant Fees Act, passed under the May government, neither was permissible.
Ali resigned shortly after the i newspaper broke the story. That was inevitable given the Renters Rights’ Bill, which Ali herself claimed would “tackle the root cause of homelessness”, included the minor detail of prohibiting what she had done. Ali could, of course, have put the property on the market with the tenants remaining in situ. That is, after all, what normally happens.
The house in question is presently listed at £894,000, and is one of three Ali owns across the capital (one is jointly held with a family member). Other Labour MPs who are also landlords include Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, who lets her former South London home for £6,000 a month, and David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary. Two ideological stalwarts of the party’s Labour First faction, Jas Atwhal and Gurinder Josan, allegedly own more than 20 properties between them. As of the last election, three of the leading five landlords in parliament are Labour MPs.
All this stands in contrast to most of Labour party history."
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2025/08/labour-has-become-the-party-of-landlordism
#UK #Labour #LabourParty #Housing #Rentism #Rents #LandLordism #Starmer #RadicalCentrism
-
#DigitalLending #Rentism #eBooks #Libraries #Copyright #IP #BookPublishers: "Today, the Internet Archive has taken a decisive final step in our ongoing battle for libraries’ digital rights by submitting the final appellate reply brief [PDF] in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the publishers’ lawsuit against our library. This move reaffirms Internet Archive’s unwavering commitment to fulfilling our mission of providing universal access to all knowledge, even in the face of steep legal challenges." https://blog.archive.org/2024/04/19/internet-archive-stands-firm-on-library-digital-rights-in-final-brief-of-hachette-v-internet-archive-lawsuit/
-
#InternetArchive #DigitalLending #eBooks #BookPublishing #Copyright #IP #Rentism #Feudalism: "Supporting the archive could be seen as a denial of the unstable financial position of people in the book world and the hard, sincere work of the people who make and sell the books. But the suggestion by the four publishers that offering expensive and complex licensing deals to libraries is the only solution for more income and a better situation for authors, is incorrect.
There’s a hidden income that the authors do not profit from: by participating in the systems that publishers and distribution platforms offer the readers also pay by giving access to their data. This is not a source of revenue generation that authors have an interest in preserving. Furthermore, there is little evidence that library lending has a negative effect on book sales. Expensive licensing deals, the proposal put forward by representatives of the Big Four publishers, mean that libraries will have to offer fewer e-books to their readers, which in turn means fewer readers, which is not benefiting authors. Finally, the licensing structures are a vehicle for censoring and retracting books. In 2022, Wiley withdrew thirteen hundred academic e-books from libraries right at the beginning of the academic year, forcing students to buy the expensive books they needed for their studies."
https://jacobin.com/2024/02/internet-archive-free-knowledge-authors