Algorithmic Pricing: What looks like the invisible hand is increasingly the work of automated pricing systems.

How Amazon’s AI Algorithms Raise the Prices You Pay

by Stacy Mitchell April 20, 2026May 5, 2026

Online price swings look like fierce competition. In reality, they’re part of an invisible strategy that steers the entire market upward.

Magazine

AI and the Sin of Sloth

by Robert Lynch March 12, 2026May 5, 2026

Welfare Wages: Only five of the 20 largest employers of low-wage workers in America pay median wages above the federal Medicaid/SNAP thresholds.

Newsletter

The Corporate Conspiracy of Silence on “Affordability”

by Anne Kim March 8, 2026March 6, 2026

The Age of Extraction: "The protectors of our industries" cartoon showing Cyrus Field, Jay Gould, William H. Vanderbilt, and Russell Sage, seated on bags of "millions," on large raft, and being carried by workers of various professions.

Magazine

Monopoly Men

by Kainoa Lowman November 2, 2025November 4, 2025

Enshittification Age: Cory Doctorow speaking at the 2018 Phoenix Comic Fest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

Books

The Cory Doctorow Doctrine

by Anita Jain October 30, 2025October 30, 2025

Books

The Exploitative Origins of Amazon

by Karina Montoya April 5, 2024April 4, 2024

washington monthly institute. Journalism and AI. Cloudfare.

January/February/March 2024

How Fighting Monopoly Can Save Journalism

by Phillip Longman January 16, 2024January 17, 2024

November/December 2023

Winning the Anti-monopoly Game

by Will Norris October 29, 2023April 5, 2024

The Monopolized Economy

The New Gold Rush in Advertising Is Your Shopping List

by Karina Montoya June 12, 2023June 9, 2023

Health Care

Amazon’s Health Care Ambitions

by Merrill Goozner September 8, 2022September 15, 2022

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amazon

How Amazon’s AI Algorithms Raise the Prices You Pay

AI and the Sin of Sloth

Monopoly Men

The Cory Doctorow Doctrine

The Exploitative Origins of Amazon

How Fighting Monopoly Can Save Journalism

Winning the Anti-monopoly Game

The New Gold Rush in Advertising Is Your Shopping List

Amazon’s Health Care Ambitions

“Deceive, Disrupt, Deny.” The Looming Threat to This Fall’s Elections

Will It Be a Blue Wave?

Are Men Okay?

Mental Health, Police, and The Death of Charles Adair

Media’s Misleading Voting Coverage Poses Dangers

Amy Acton Won’t Debate. It’s Worked Before