This is the same argument libertarian make about landlords where they say "you don't have to rent, just go live off grid". it's technically not even true and also instantly recognizable as bullshit if you live in the real world

I remember when Valve had to be browbeaten into even offering refunds at the business end of EU law telling them "do this or you can't sell shit here," they are not and have never been "the good guys" no matter how much you liked Team Fortress 2 back in the day

Nobody has to respect this behavior, man. We can all see what you're doing, you aren't clever

This is the dumbass pundit playbook 101, say something obviously incorrect and stupid, then resolutely ignore every single person who provides concrete examples of why your entire premise is faulty from first principles

I am not exhaustively familiar with either text, but I feel like somewhere in the broader Gundam canon there must have been a case of someone hunting the White Base that took their leg.

If I claimed that "Moby-Dick" is an allegory for capitalism, I might have to do some mild rhetorical gymnastics to pull that off, but it'd take a genuinely extraordinary argument to justify the claim that, for example, "Moby-Dick" has a giant robot in it.

Marketplace asymmetry exists in every creative industry, for sure. Getting a movie or album into a big box store always meant it would move more units than if it was only carried by niche retailers.

But asymmetry like *this* seems unique, and only makes the ongoing payment processor issues worse.

You can see right now the Epstein-adjacent sex pest technofascists desperately and relentlessly trying to pull the same shit with generative AI, painting opposition as having complex and weird problems with it.

Capitalists managed to turn a very simple and *completely normal* problem with automation, into the popular conception of luddites, to the point where they convinced people it's weird to not want to come home missing limbs for a fraction of the wages you deserve.

"I produce 10x more than I did last year but still make the same money. And the machine I now use eats human fingers. Who the fuck is benefiting here?"

Not a difficult issue, not a weird position for a person to have.

1725: Why the fuck did I lose my left hand for the same wages I earned while being 10x more productive than last year? Who the fuck is benefiting here?

2025: Why am I losing my job to a machine that encourages kids to kill themselves and can't actually do my job? Who the fuck is benefiting here?