this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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Specifically Xbox Games.

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[–] TropicalDingdong 45 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Is there a word for something that isn't necessarily a conspiracy, but involves the unspoken collusion of mutual parties whose interests are aligned?

[–] Theprogressivist 43 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Tacit Collusion: a type of collusive behavior where firms coordinate their actions without explicitly communicating or reaching an agreement. Instead, firms may signal their intentions through various actions, such as pricing behavior or output levels, in order to coordinate their behavior and achieve higher profits.

[–] TheDrunkard 23 points 9 months ago (2 children)

In Canada, when one of the three cellphone carriers raise their prices, the other two raise theirs immediately.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Gas stations are a big one here in the US. Why would one keep their price lower when the one across the street is charging 15 cents more per gallon?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

i love the crtc

what a wonderful institution

collusive radio and telecommunications council

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think fornal "business" schooling has led to this. If everyone has the same playbook, it's easy to make the same plays without it being collusion

[–] Theprogressivist 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It would still be collusion with that example of yours. Especially if it's a method that is being taught.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

If that were the case, companies would go down left right and center. What do you think the gas stations are doing? Landlords? Companies hiring devs? Everything is becoming lockstepped and thats why we are losing.

We need to break up businesses above 999 mil in assets (including other companies) and break up entry barriers for new businesses. Amend the laws to exclude large companies from any securities so it is actually too risky to become this big.

Its not really hard to do but people need to stop working for a day every month to push this. Take to the streets and unionize en masse.

Everyone who is not part of a union is part of the problem at this point.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Conspiracies are a real thing, you can just say conspiracy.

Conspiracy theories are often bogus.

[–] TropicalDingdong 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

A conspiracy requires collusion.

I'm talking about a kind of coordinated action where there is not a direct link of communication.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

No recorded direct link of communication. The CEOs and half the board will individually go to company paid lunches with competition, members of the board are straight up members of a competing board. Or even lobbyists and lawyers of competing companies going to events together that happens daily.

"But I pinky promise we don't talk about our competing business plans while we eat lunch and golf together"

I think most conspiracy theories are bullshit. Especially things that require mass government, academic, and/or inter-industry coordination just cannot happen easily due to the fact that large scale coordination of people is very very difficult.

But in a market with 2-4 long-standing players in an oligopoly with offices right by each other, you bet your ass there is in-person collusion... it has been caught many times and likely the extreme vast majority of cases are not caught. Price adjustment is extremely easy to collude on and has mountains of excuses of plausible deniability and "just following the market" bs. So far, there has yet to be a market that has remained competitive and hasn't turned into an oligopoly. Monopoly is the steady state of a capitalist system without strict anti-competitive regulations.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Ahh, that's a systemic issue; a system where an undesired outcome is inadvertently incentivized. Aka an emergent phenomenon.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Is there a word for something that isn't necessarily a conspiracy, but involves the unspoken collusion of mutual parties whose interests are aligned?

[Modern] Capitalism?