Pluralistic: Expedia amazoned hotel rooms (15 Oct 2026)

Blog · Watch/Read · (gathered 2026-10-18)

• Cory Doctorow argues that digital intermediaries like Amazon and Expedia have “amazoned” their markets, leveraging monopoly power to “enshittify” services and impose economy-wide price increases on both consumers and sellers.
• Expedia’s “VIP listing” program forces participating hotels to raise prices on all non-Expedia sites by 10-25% indefinitely to gain visibility, directly contributing to superinflationary hotel rates (e.g., a 58% increase from 2020-2025) and Expedia’s record profits.
• This market manipulation, driven by “most favored nation” clauses and exorbitant fees (51-60% for Amazon merchants), creates an “Amazon Tax” that artificially inflates prices everywhere, regardless of where consumers shop.
• Individual consumer actions are ineffective against these “economic termites”; systemic action, including the “corporate death penalty” for companies consuming societal structural members, is necessary to combat the resulting inflation and cost of living crisis.