this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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Technology
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Piracy exists because it's easier than the alternative. Textbooks are expensive as hell and publishers are working to demolish the used book market - first by changing the version every year, and now with one-time-use mandatory software keys. Sites like Libgen wouldn't have to exist if textbooks were $20 a pop, or if the used book market was allowed to exist. These problems are created by greed.
Our entire society is set up to wring out anyone who is unfortunate enough to find themselves buying anything.
And as resources get squeezed, more and more people are trying to claw at smaller and smaller pieces of the overall economic pie.
The breaking point will be catastrophic.
No it won't. This thing won't go out with a bang, it dies with a whimper. It looks like people slowly slipping, avenues of social mobility slowly narrowing, new generations getting dumber, your bills getting higher and you being able to afford less and less. And there is no "breaking point". By the time you end up on the street, many others will already be there for whom noone wanted to rock the boat. And not many will want to do so for you either.
Just look at news from Hungary for a while, that's how it looks like when the money runs out and can't flow up anymore.