[istultus]

It really does suck that US companies have belatedly figured out that demand is elastic and jacked up the prices. Where I live that happened long ago.

The thing is that he doesn't present any alternative. I know he's some variant of a communist, so does he suggest government control for everything? As if that solved anything? I guess what you find on empty market shelves is cheaper.

Truly a question - what's your solution? What's a solution? People have been arguing that everything is getting worse since forever. I've yet to see people organize and stop buying Pepsi or Coke. Should the government do it for them? Do you propose AI will solve the Socialist Calculation Problem? You're probably against AI as well...

[miohtama]

Pepsi and Coke issue has been solved as there are multiple cola brands with store label or no label. You can buy cheaper cola and you do not need to buy Coke/Pepsi.

[wat10000]

The direct fix is not that hard. I’m pretty sure the laws are already there, they just need to be used. Block mergers that create companies with massive market share. Break up monopolies. Severely punish price fixing.

The real question is, why doesn’t this happen? And answering that gets you to the real, difficult problem: the government doesn’t want to do these things because the government chiefly operates to serve the rich and powerful. Solving that is quite difficult indeed.

[shkkmo]

I think the classic suggestion is to breakup monopolies and block large mergers. We don't need to have people stop buying Pepsi or Coke, we need the company that sells Coke to not own a giant swath of the entire drink market.

Although specifically here, I think we need new regulations broadly banning the type of data broker price fixing that is discussed in this article.

[immibis]

You shouldn't have to propose a solution to complain about a problem.