Economic sociologist Lindsay Owens, head of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive Washington thinktank, has a message for frustrated US shoppers: “Repeat after me: it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.” That’s the core of her new book, Gouged: The End of a Fair Price – and What That Means for Your Wallet, which argues that Americans are living through the “reinvention of the rip-off”, a phenomenon undermining trust in the economy. Owens told the Guardian that nothing short of a consumer uprising and a slate of tough new rules will fix the problem.
The Book's Core Argument
The book concludes with a “shoppers’ bill of rights” outlining how local and federal governments could write rules to address the issue. It urges banning companies from using shared software to coordinate prices and requiring AI ‘shopping assistants’ to act in consumers’ best interest rather than steering them to higher-price items, among other measures. “A cost of living crisis is the right time to build the constituency for a revived consumer movement in this country,” Owens says.
Owens explained why she wrote the book: “Right around the time that America started experiencing rising inflation and cost of living in 2021, I started to realize that there was something else going on besides just high prices. The way companies were talking about pricing was starting to shift. Their costs were going up but they weren’t too worried about it. They were planning to pass all of their rising costs along to us, and they were pretty bullish about gilding the lily and going for more.”
The Role of Data and Technology
Owens highlights the importance of data mining companies unknown to the average consumer, such as EverSight, Kronos, and Plexure. “Hugely important. Their dossiers contain thousands of data points and inferences about consumers, including their age, income, health, religion, and even partisan affiliation. Virtually no one evades data brokers’ grasp. One data broker claims to have data profiles on roughly 95% of adults.”
Retailers increasingly rely on outside consultants and AI startups specializing in the “art and science behind pricing decisions”. They run experiments on consumers and even personalize prices to each consumer’s pain point. Owens argues that profit maximization is not intrinsically problematic in a competitive marketplace, but as competition disappears and the law struggles to keep pace, new technologies and brazen methods of corporate profiteering erode the basic social contract between shoppers and retailers.
Planned Obsolescence and Consumer Exhaustion
The book also explores “planned obsolescence”, noting that Americans are still surprised by it despite historical examples like the lightbulb that has been burning in California for 120 years, and how manufacturers banded together to ensure they never lasted that long again. Owens says, “I think we all have a sense that this is going on and something has shifted, but we don’t fully appreciate how systematic and how purposeful this is. Whether it’s making the jar of Skippy peanut butter concave, degrading product quality, locking you out of something you bought, forcing you to pay top dollar for parts and repair – all of that is really baked into how companies operate these days.”
Owens describes American shoppers as “exhausted”, noting that high prices make shopping treacherous. “The amount of basics Americans are putting on credit cards, the amount of Americans who are using things like ‘buy now, pay later’ shows how difficult it is. Adding insult to injury is the increasingly opaque manipulative and volatile way that corporate America does pricing. This reinvention of the rip-off that we’re all living through has undermined trust in one of the major ways we participate in the economy. Comparison shopping is almost impossible now. Trying to get a refund is a three-day battle with a chat bot, and even if you think you won, you’d better remember to check with your bank to make sure they actually follow through.”
Inflation Cycle and Personal Strategies
Owens believes the current inflation cycle is far from over. “I don’t even think we’re even at the halfway point. This is something I’ve been saying since 2022. Every time I was on the Hill, I was screaming at the Biden administration to focus more on prices and cost of living. This is a once-in-50-year period of high inflation. Something has completely changed in our culture and our economy, in our politics, and you have to be responsive to it.” She also notes that the US and Israel attacks on Iran have ramped up inflation, similar to Trump’s trade war, and expects companies to take advantage of the war.
On a personal level, Owens admits, “I am not the ‘points guy’ for e-commerce. I, like you, am being screwed by these companies.” She updates her comparison-shopping methods: “I look at brick and mortar, on the app, logged in, logged out. I try not to buy in-app. I run experiments. Call your friends and say: ‘What price are you seeing?’ My husband and I sit in bed with our laptops open, figuring out which of us gets the better deal. Whoever gets the better deal buys the plane tickets.”
Optimism and Legislative Action
Despite pessimism from readers, Owens sees reason for optimism. “I do think the deck is stacked against us and we have our work cut out. It feels like whac-a-mole – you get a win in one city, you find out your bill is vetoed in another.” She cites examples like Colorado Governor Jared Polis vetoing surveillance pricing legislation and New York Governor Kathy Hochul still considering a bill. However, she notes, “When Americans find out that companies are partnering with AI companies to spy on you and figure out how to take your last three pennies for every item in your grocery cart, they get pretty ticked off. I think the optimism I have is the sort of public anger, and, frankly, the groundswell of public conversation around this.”
The Federal Trade Commission is sorting through about 1,000 comments from Americans about surveillance pricing regulation. Wendy’s had to “cry ‘uncle’” and say they wouldn’t do surge pricing on their electronic menu board, and Delta and Instacart also backed down after Groundwork exposed their algorithmic pricing experiments. Owens believes this public pressure, combined with legislative activity, is key to “sticking the genie back in the bottle”.
On the priority list for Democrats if they take the House and Senate, Owens says, “The top issue for the American people, and it has been this way since 2022, is prices and the cost of living. Anything that takes on the economy is going to be top of the list. The only that could shift could be rising concern about AI – and a lot of the most sinister nefarious and opaque pricing practices that corporate America is using are powered by AI. We’re seeing interest from Republicans as well. I testified in front of [Missouri Senator] Josh Hawley on this a couple weeks ago, at his request, as a majority witness, which has never happened to me before.”
Owens concludes with a call for updating consumer laws: “It’s been a really long time since the consumer laws have been updated. I do think e-commerce and agentic commerce begs a new type of policy regime. This year alone, there are 90 pieces of legislation throughout the country, in states and cities to try to curtail algorithmic price fixing. A cost of living crisis is the right time to build the constituency for a revived consumer movement in this country.”
