"I always get a kick out of people's reactions when I bring up what I've come to think of as "mini crimes" against big businesses - small acts of deviance that average shoppers commit without really even thinking about it. At first, there's usually denial: "No, I would never engage in the slightest level of fraud." But pretty quickly, the confessions start to roll in."
"Our economic machine is more impersonal than ever. Having a friendly local grocer and corner store guy who's known you since you were a baby is increasingly rare. They've been replaced by ever-larger, colder conglomerates that are willing to ax workers on a dime, pad executives' pockets, and focus on little other than profits. Corporate America's favorite new toy - AI - promises efficiency and riches for them and precarity and anxiety for us."
"Against that backdrop, some people have turned to petty fraud, policy abuse, and small acts of sabotage as a means of getting back at their economic overlords. They're engaging in spurts of shoplifting, taking part in return shenanigans, and using their credit cards for " friendly fraud" that's anything but. They see - or at least excuse - these acts not as stealing but as small moments of deserved vengeance in a system that violates their sense of basic fairness at every turn."
Many consumers engage in small acts of rule-bending against large corporations, including mislabeling items, returning worn goods, sneaking snacks into theaters, and committing forms of credit-card "friendly fraud." These behaviors often provoke little guilt and are rationalized as minor vengeance against impersonal conglomerates that prioritize profits, cut workers, and deploy technologies like AI that heighten economic insecurity. People frame such acts as deserved responses to perceived unfairness, exploiting return policies, shoplifting sporadically, and using payment tactics to push back when institutions fail to meet expectations or address grievances.
Read at Business Insider
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