NekoKoneko

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.

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/

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.

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

This doesn't seem sarcastic.

/s

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

Help! I've shot myself in the face on purpose! How can I reassure investors that I am still a capable CEO!?

According to the article, the data is not clearly lost. It's that their provider, OSS, had a subcontract with Iron Mountain to host the data storage. When OSS abruptly went defunct, PBS had no direct legal path to access the data in Iron Mountain, and no assurance Iron Mountain would preserve it. It filed the lawsuit to make sure the data was preserved and affirm a legal basis to recover the data.

So the headline's use of "loses access" is accurate but a little misleading. That said, it is a great argument for reliable data preservation.

Well, if you were a billionaire who owned AI system trained to influence and extract money from humans, and there's no humans online, what would you do?

And so that brings us to how robots actually will become a reality...

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.