The end of the rip-off economy: consumers use LLMs against information asymmetry

Posted by scythe 10/29/2025

The end of the rip-off economy: consumers use LLMs against information asymmetry(www.economist.com)

254 points | 193 commentspage 4

dlcarrier 10/29/2025|

See also: Sludge / What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It (https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545082/sludge/)

A lot of what LLMs help with is useless processes and paperwork that exists solely and purposefully as an impediment, when regulating against something is unpopular or prohibited. There's no specific intelligence required for these tasks, just a familiarity with a small amount of information, buried deep in a large amount of irrelevant nonsense.

fedeb95 10/29/2025||

yes, but the cost of using such services must be offset by how much you gain. We'll see in the future

lovestory 10/29/2025||

I would assume many consumers are gonna have to switch to more of DIY approach for many tasks that required some domain expertise. For example, most of my friends completely stopped buying useless skincare products because chatgpt would make them a table of INCI list and explain them the benefit of the ingredient. Turns out most of products are BS. Vitamin C doesn't even penetrate the deeper skin layer, it just evaporates on your skin. My bet is that many companies will have hard time marketing on customer's naivety.

elliotbnvl 10/29/2025||

If we have been living in the Information Age, I propose that we have just entered the Intelligence Age.

andy99 10/29/2025||

It’s funny because I actually think we’re quite possibly kicking off a dark age where almost nobody thinks or writes for themselves anymore and real knowledge (or wisdom if you like) is gatekept by big companies.

It’s a parallel to the medieval dark ages where OpenAI is the church

Y_Y 10/29/2025||

What if we compromise and call it The Dark Enlightenment

yoyohello13 10/29/2025||

I propose The Delightenment.

chickensong 10/29/2025|||

You have my vote

satisfice 10/30/2025|||

I like that…

or the amusalypse

bux93 10/29/2025|||

more like the sa-bot-age

Joel_Mckay 10/29/2025||

Nope... Just another hype cycle right now. =3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

palmotea 10/29/2025||

> These examples add up to something bigger. As AI goes mainstream, it will remove one of the most enduring distortions in modern capitalism: the information advantages that sellers, service providers and intermediaries enjoy over consumers. When everyone has a genius in their pocket, they will be less vulnerable to mis-selling—benefiting them and improving overall economic efficiency. The “rip-off economy”, in which firms profit from opacity, confusion or inertia, is meeting its match.

Except that LLMs are not "a genius in your pocket." They'll definitely give you an answer, whether it's good or correct, who knows.

john01dav 10/29/2025||

It doesn't need to be reliable here to have the described effect. Instead, all it needs to do is point users in the right direction, which LLMs are usually quite good at. I often describe to one something that feels like it should exist, and then it can come back with the specific obscure name for exactly that thing. When it doesn't have an accurate answer, all I've lost is a few minutes. It just needs to give a vaguely useful direction most of the time.

iso1631 10/29/2025||

Well quite. Who controls the AI, clearly it is going to give them the advantage. If anything it will make the problem worse.

helicone 10/30/2025||

maybe the amish were right all along

Joel_Mckay 10/29/2025||

Except LLM derived cons also increase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfN9wnPvU0

Technology changes, but on average human-beings do not. =3

vjvjvjvjghv 10/29/2025||

Just wait until LLMs will serve ads. That's pretty much guaranteed to come.

onetokeoverthe 10/29/2025||

[dead]

seydor 10/29/2025|

Given the huge capitalizations of AI companies, banks will not like this and will eliminate it