Wonderful. Love Doctorow, and this piece makes good points, even if it does veer into Black Mirror "contrived circumstances to maximize cruelty potential of new tech" territory. The key aspect of this story is that poor people are forced to use bad tech to secure housing. Doctorow captures the pathos of it, the resentful landlords getting back at "the poors" any way they can - this rings true. But at least in my world, it really is a matter of choosing a Brother laser printer instead of a shitty Epson color laserjet - and it's a $100 mistake if you pick wrong. Which is low stakes in my world. (of course one of the key elements of this story is "when worlds collide" and $100 is life-changing stakes for some)
https://imgur.com/r/4chan/dgGvgKF