Replying to Avatar Cory Doctorow

Predatory pricing used to be illegal, but #ChicagoSchool #economists convinced judges to stop enforcing the law on the grounds that predatory pricing was *impossible* because no rational actor would choose to lose money. They (willfully) ignored the obvious possibility that a #VC fund could invest in a money-losing business and use predatory pricing to convince retail investors that a pile of shit of sufficient size *must* have a pony under it somewhere.

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Cory Doctorow 2y ago

This #VenturePredation let investors - like #PrinceBoneSaw - cash out to suckers, leaving behind a money-losing business that had to invent ever-sweatier accounting tricks and implausible narratives to keep the suckers on the line while they blew town. A bezzle, in other words:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fake-it-till-you-make-it/#millennial-lifestyle-subsidy

Uber is a true bezzle innovator, coming up with all kinds of fairy tales and sci-fi gimmicks to explain how they would convert their money-loser into a profitable business.

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Cory Doctorow 2y ago

They spent $2.5b on #SelfDrivingCars, producing a vehicle whose mean distance between fatal crashes was *half a mile*. Then they paid another company *$400 million* to take this self-licking ice-cream cone off their hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Amazingly, self-driving cars were among the *more* plausible of Uber's plans.

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