Gouged: How Big Tech Reinvented the Rip-Off (with Lindsay Owens)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick HanauerTuesday, September 22, 2026

Show Notes

For 150 years, the price tag made a simple and universal promise: the price you saw was the price everyone saw. Now, that promise is disappearing. This week, Lindsay Owens, President and CEO of the Groundwork Collaborative returns to discuss her new book, Gouged: The End of a Fair Price — And What That Means for Your Wallet. She explains how corporations are using algorithms, personal data, and AI to figure out not what something costs, but how much you personally are willing to pay. From Instacart’s grocery experiments to the coming world of AI shopping agents, the conversation asks a basic question: If nobody knows what the real price is, can markets actually work the way we’re told they do?

Lindsay Owens, PhD, is the President and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, an economic policy think tank focused on corporate power, prices, and an economy that works for workers and families. She is also the author of Gouged: The End of a Fair Price — And What That Means for Your Wallet.

Social Media:

@lindsayowens.bsky.social

@groundwork.bsky.social

@lindsayowensphd

@groundworkcollab

@owenslindsay1

@Groundwork

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