The Monopoly Rent and the Creator Economy

I’m about to write the most journalistic thing I’ve ever written: I received a tip.

I wish I could say it was an “anonymous tip” because that sounds even more journalistic. But it wasn’t anonymous, though I won’t say who it was. Anyhow, my source told me about a small business owner—someone who sells online courses and does quite well—paying an outrageous sum for a fairly standard service.

This, of course, was not an isolated incident. I didn't really need a tip. I know all about this kind of thing. Wildly inflated prices grace all manner of products and services within the creator economy, coaching industry, and "online business" space in general.

‘What’s going on?’ my source wanted to know. ‘How do people get caught paying so far above market rate? And why do people charge prices so out of whack with the market?’ I totally paraphrased all that. Here's what my source really asked about: "the gaslighting inflationary online pricing bubble."

In this episode, I endeavor to get to the bottom of the Gaslighting Inflationary Pricing Bubble Online—GIPBO. I discover that it's not so much an economic problem (although that's part of the story). It's an epistemological one.

Footnotes:

• "Hostile Epistemology" by C. Thi Nguyen
• "Neoclassical Economics" on Investopedia
• "The Epistemic Seduction of Markets" by Lisa Herzog in The Raven
• "Escape the Echo Chamber" by C. Thi Nguyen
• "The Art of Rent" by David Harvey

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