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Another version of this discussion that comes up frequently is something like the "Support local businesses!" thing, where we're supposed to spend more money at the local diner and ignore a chain like Denny's.. but Denny's is open 24 hours. And people should use Mom+Pop's furniture store, even though they can get a better price plus light bulbs, and the rest of the groceries from Walmart. And we need to use less water during my showers, and ignore the golf courses or the chip factory down the road.

The idea of being a "responsible consumer" at most just delays the inevitable shutdown for a few years, because economies of scale is a real thing. Moralizing to people that they need to spend more money / time / convenience / change their habits isn't effective, because even if consumers are genuinely interested in making sacrifices in exchange for quality, everything that's independent is closing anyway when the small owners sell out to whoever is buying. Those who thrive on mergers and acquisition don't care whether consumers are "responsible".

Consumers aren't children or robots, but we also don't have any choice or agency.. in the US at least there are 4-5 companies that make 80% of the groceries you buy. Telecommunications and media are going to look even worse, depending on how you want to measure it. As much as I hate to say it, it looks like only big government can protect us from big business. So yes, blaming big tech is missing the point, but so is blaming consumers. Write your congressman I guess? Wish I could write his economist instead though.. for whatever reason discouraging monopolies doesn't seem to work, so maybe we should look instead at deliberately incentivizing variety.



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