Result: soviet-style scarcity with convenient illusion of abundance, and victim blaming narrative "market doesn't support that".

I maintain a long list of basic products I haven't been able to get on the market: can opener, dried fish, leather belt, pants that fit, etc etc…

— Wolf Tivy (@wolftivy) May 6, 2021

This is a great insight. I’ve had similar thoughts. For instance, my partner and I bought a good half dozen can openers before we found one that even basically functioned. Then we bought another copy of it.

Plenty of choice, but a scarcity of anything that’s not crap. The same with food: loads of absolute health-destroying offal and slop on offer, and even the “quality” choices are often little better, just with better branding. Think “Beyond Meat” is good for you? Ha.

Actual market failures are reinterpreted as personal failures, a malfunction of desire rather than a dysfunction of markets. Meanwhile, those of us who would pay 2-3x as much for an actual quality product are told are wishes aren’t realistic because we refuse to fall for scams.