#Order processing automation

[danielweasly]

Shopify integration with Dynamics 365 Business Central

Integrating Shopify with Dynamics 365 Business Central is a powerful way to streamline eCommerce operations and enhance overall business efficiency. By connecting these two platforms, businesses can sync orders, inventory, and customer data seamlessly, reducing manual entry and the potential for errors. When an order is placed on Shopify, the information can be automatically pushed to Business Central, where it can be processed, invoiced, and tracked. Likewise, inventory levels in Business Central can be updated in real-time on Shopify, ensuring customers are only shown products that are in stock. This integration allows businesses to save time, improve order accuracy, and provide a better experience for their customers.

Beyond improving operational efficiency, this integration also enhances financial management and reporting. Sales data from Shopify can be transferred directly into Business Central, allowing finance teams to generate real-time financial reports and manage cash flow effectively. The integration helps ensure that all sales transactions, including taxes and shipping, are accurately recorded in Business Central's general ledger. This seamless flow of data between Shopify and Dynamics 365 Business Central empowers businesses to scale, automate processes, and make data-driven decisions without worrying about discrepancies between their eCommerce platform and back-office systems.

Click here to know more: https://www.intelegain.com/shopify-integration-with-dynamics-365-business-central/

[essglobe]

Top Benefits of Order Processing Automation with RPA

Uncover the significant advantages of using RPA for order processing, including improved speed, accuracy, and cost savings. Discover why businesses are making the switch to automated solutions.

[procurement-insights]

Biggest Challenges for Packaging & Container Companies in Enabling Supplier Collaboration & Automating Purchase Order (PO) Processes

Here we are in 2025 still trying to solve 1999 suplly chain problems - Why?

EDITOR’S NOTE: I have recently completed a preliminary analysis of Packaging & Container Companies’ challenges to enable greater supplier collaboration and automation around the purchase order process, including PO confirmations, shipment notices, and price/quantity changes. In the first part of this post, I will discuss at a high level the challenges this industry sector currently faces. In…

[cesium-sheep]

jesus, I really gotta switch pharmacies. they just straight delete my refill requests through software errors like a full half of the time at this point.

[eatossolutions]

AI-Enabled Ordering Automation: Revolutionize Efficiency & Customer Experience | 2024

Explore how AI-enabled ordering automation can streamline your ordering process, enhance accuracy, and improve customer satisfaction. Discover the latest advancements in AI technology for automating orders in 2024.

[inventorymanagementsystem]

In today's complex business landscape, achieving operational efficiency is more than just an advantage—it's a necessity. Purchase Order Automation emerges as a pivotal tool, enhancing the procurement process and supply chain management.

[salesaprovalworkflow]

Demystifying the Distinction: Sales Orders vs. Invoices

Are you grappling with the nuances between a sales order and an invoice? It's a common dilemma, yet grasping the disparity is pivotal for business proprietors and procurement experts alike. In this discourse, we'll unravel the resemblances and disparities between these pivotal documents. Furthermore, we'll delve into the optimal scenarios for employing each, coupled with insights on crafting them. So, let's embark on this journey to dispel any ambiguity once and for all!

Deciphering the Invoice

An invoice epitomizes a comprehensive breakdown of the products or services furnished by a business to its clientele. Typically, it encompasses crucial details such as the date, customer particulars, item descriptions, quantity transacted, unit prices, and the total sum owed.

Invoices are typically formulated subsequent to the delivery or completion of products or services. They function as official solicitations for payment from the business to its clientele. Invoices can be disseminated via conventional mail, email, or online portals.

Moreover, most invoices delineate payment terms elucidating the payment deadlines and any repercussions for tardy payments. Businesses leverage invoices not solely as payment requisitions but also as legal instruments in case of discrepancies pertaining to billing amounts.

In essence, invoices play a pivotal role in facilitating efficient cash flow management across businesses of varying scales while furnishing clientele with lucid documentation of their acquisitions.

Understanding the Sales Order

A sales order serves as a comprehensive dossier embodying the accord between a clientele and a business concerning the procurement of goods or services. It delineates the specifics of the transaction, encompassing the item details, costs, and the payment timeline.

Sales orders find frequent application in industries characterized by elongated lead times between order placement and product or service reception. This allows all parties involved to harbor a lucid comprehension of the agreed-upon terms before commencing any work.

Typically, a sales order encompasses particulars such as customer details, shipping information, item descriptions, quantities, unit prices, total expenses, payment terms, and any ancillary instructions or bespoke requests.

Upon creation and acceptance by both parties – the buyer and seller – a sales order assumes the guise of a legally binding document, signifying unanimity on all terms articulated within. Henceforth, sales orders metamorphose into legal instruments shielding clientele rights pertaining to delivery schedules and product acquisitions, mitigating the likelihood of discrepancies provided all protocols have been meticulously adhered to.

The precision in crafting sales orders empowers businesses to streamline their procurement processes while fostering transparency in transactions with clientele.

Unveiling the Resemblances and Disparities

While both invoices and sales orders wield indispensability in the procurement realm, they diverge in terms of functionality. The primary semblance lies in their common ground of furnishing transaction specifics encompassing goods or services. Nevertheless, several disparities set them asunder.

A sales order serves as a precursor to actualizing a transaction, delineating customer requisites for products or services. It encapsulates details such as item quantities, descriptions, unit prices, and delivery timelines. Conversely, an invoice materializes post-transaction completion, furnishing a comprehensive breakdown of acquisitions comprising quantities and prices.

Another differentiating facet pertains to their legal ramifications: while a sales order symbolizes a forthcoming agreement to vend goods or render services; an invoice operates as tangible evidence of payment already remitted.

In crafting a sales order, authorization from designated personnel is requisite, whereas the creation of an invoice can be facilitated by anyone post-product delivery or service execution, streamlining the payment requisition process for suppliers.

Grasping these commonalities and disparities is instrumental in discerning the apt instances for deploying each document within your procurement repertoire effectively.

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Sales approval workflow - Wix

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[essglobe]

How RPA Transforms Order Processing Efficiency

Explore the transformative impact of RPA on order processing. From reducing delays to minimizing errors, find out how automation enhances productivity and customer satisfaction.

[hitechdigital]

Purchase Order (PO) Management for Small Manufacturers

Simplify your procurement with our purchase order management system designed specifically for small manufacturers. Enjoy streamlined ordering, efficient tracking and improved supplier relationships. Enhance your purchasing process for greater accuracy and productivity.

[technicalfika]

Event-Driven Design Demystified: Concepts and Examples

🚀 Discover how this cutting-edge architecture transforms software systems with real-world examples. From e-commerce efficiency to smart home automation, learn how to create responsive and scalable applications #EventDrivenDesign #SoftwareArchitecture

In the world of software architecture, event-driven design has emerged as a powerful paradigm that allows systems to react and respond to events in a flexible and efficient manner. Whether you’re building applications, microservices, or even IoT devices, understanding event-driven design can lead to more scalable, responsive, and adaptable systems. In this article, we’ll delve into the core…

[heelix1r]

𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪 DON’T BE SHY … COME CLOSER 🌾

𖤐ᝰ.ᐟ𖦹₊⊹ don’t be shy, jungwon just wants to take some pictures with you. won’t you join him?

bela is typing . . . oh to be in forced proximity with yang jungwon…

jungwon x f!reader | drabble | romance | no established au

masterlist | guidelines | requests OPEN !

like this order? check out my recently opened coffee lounge to make your own order to-go ;)

jungwon + romance + forced proximity + “are you blushing?”

you heard distinct chattering from inside the photobooth you were passing by on your way to the claw machines. by the time you turned the corner, you were startled to see jungwon standing on the side, crossing his arms lightly as he rolled his eyes at the commotion coming from the inside. he laid eyes on you, and his expression softened.

“so that’s where you guys were headed off to,” you retorted with a chuckle. “i was wondering how i could’ve lost all seven of you.”

“it was jake’s idea,” he said, tapping on the photobooth with his hands. “but i lost rock-paper-scissors with jay since we both entered the booth last. so now i just have to wait here.”

you heard a muffled “almost done!” from sunoo inside the booth.

“but never mind that,” jungwon said, pushing himself from the photobooth, placing his hands in his pockets. “where were you headed? or were you just looking for us?”

“oh no.” you shook your head. “i gave up five minutes ago, i was going to leave you guys for dead. i wanted to check out the claw machines.”

jungwon shook his head as he saw heeseung’s foot step outside of the booth, presumably preventing himself from falling out. the both of you could hear fragmented bickering about who got to be in the front, faces being smushed in, and an onslaught of swearing, laughing, and yelling that seemed to have no end. you gave each other a knowing look—jungwon definitely was the lucky one by staying out of there.

“well, i’ll come join you,” he mused, nudging his head over to the claw machines. “i bet what you’re doing is a lot more productive than whatever they’re doing.”

“good idea.” you had resigned yourself to taking the lead, and jungwon was more than happy to follow suit. by the time you two had your backs to the photobooth, everything that happened next was too quick for you to process.

in a flash of whirring movements, you yelped at the feeling of your arms being grasped—jungwon’s grunt mirrored your surprise as you watched the other boys chase the two of you down, forcibly pushing you into the photobooth. you and jungwon stared at each other amidst processing their unfiltered laughter. you could hear an employee scolding them to keep it down.

“what are you guys doing?” jungwon asked, his face showing more concern over everything else.

“take some pictures!” riki called out from the outside. “you two are the only ones who didn’t get to, so jay threw in a few more won for you guys to do. see you later!”

it was hard to miss their parading footsteps fade into the distance. you turned to the bright, inviting screen, giving you the option of the standard 4-picture portrait mode.

then it hit you.

you were alone in a close space with yang jungwon.

your body tensed up immediately at the realization, taking in the subtlety in the way his shoulder was pressed against yours. you could smell his cologne—it was faint, but you knew it was his. the only sound that filled your shared silence was the automated voice coming from the booth, inviting the both of you to choose some filters.

you were startled at the sound of jungwon clearing his throat. both of you turned towards one another slowly, your eye contact with him moving back towards the screen.

“we could just take some normal photos,” he offered nonchalantly. he even slouched ever so slightly after he tinkered with the options. “or some silly ones. have any ideas in mind?”

think, think, think.

jungwon, jungwon, jungwon.

“we could,” you mumbled quietly, very intentionally avoiding his gaze. you stared straight in front of you, as if the screen magnetized your vision. or rather, jungwon was repelling it.

repelling it would be far from the truth.

“y/n, that was not an answer.” you pressed your lips together as you heard his voice contort with confusion. “nonchalant or silly? or a mix of both?”

“silly,” you blurted out, your eyes still glued to the screen. “yeah, that would be a good idea.”

jungwon didn’t respond. as a matter of fact, you realized he didn’t reach out for the screen either. he sat there in silence.

“y/n,” he said after a few moments. “look at me.”

you obliged. to your horror, you saw a glint of a smirk stretch across his lips, watching intently as his body leaned in closer to yours, closing the distance between the two of you ever so slightly.

you were in complete shock. jungwon’s stare had you pinned, frozen like a deer in headlights. and as he approached your face even closer with his, you knew you were completely busted. his face was so close, you felt him breathing on your skin. your noses were nearly touching.

he broke the silence once more. “are you blushing?” he hums, that foxy grin appearing without remorse.

you whip around in an attempt to distance yourself from him, as if it would save your dignity. “no,” you answered (a little too forcefully). “i am not. it’s just the screen. there’s… there’s strawberries all over the filters.”

there were no strawberries on the screen. dork.

jungwon chuckled softly. you watched his hand approach the booth screen, starting the countdown abruptly.

“if you’re not blushing, then,” he mused, “then we can move on to being silly, right?”

as if directly on cue, you felt fingers pinching your cheeks in, turning your face towards him. he had a knowing smirk on his face as he gently squished the skin of your cheeks. you knew that he knew that your face was abnormally hot.

before you could protest, the first shutter went off.

you pushed his fingers away, “that was uncalled for!” you exclaimed, wailing your arms. “how dare—”

click. there goes the second picture.

you turned to the camera in horror, and jungwon bursted out into a fit of laughter as you realized how little time you had left.

the camera caught your horrified stare. click.

there was no fighting this. jungwon was playing with you and getting a laugh out of it. mustering what courage you had, you turned back to jungwon within the few seconds you hand, cupped his face, and pressed a firm kiss to his cheek. you heard him gasp as the final click went off.

at last, the photo booth was wishing the two of you farewell. you hardly processed that you had just willingly kissed jungwon’s cheek for the sake of the photos, and by the looks of it, jungwon wasn’t really processing it, either.

“two can play at that game,” you muttered, reaching out for the curtain to leave.

but before you could, jungwon nearly pounced on your hands, shooing them away from the curtain, and briskly moving themselves down to cradle your hips. your head whipped around and your eyes met jungwon’s, your faces inches apart.

“was that you being silly?” he asked, his voice low.

that crimson heat forced its way back up to the skin of your cheeks, much to your dismay. “what would you do if i said no?” you whispered.

he narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, his fingers tightening around your waist. he pulled you closer, your bodies now pressed against once another.

“i wouldn’t let you leave this booth,” he replied.

as a sharp inhale entered your mouth, both of you were startled out of your trances as a loud banging could be heard from the door.

“are you done yet?” sunghoon asked from the outside. “we’re hungry and out of tickets. hurry up!”

“coming!” you yelled out quickly, composing yourself enough to hastily push the curtain to the booth to the side, allowing the light to display your close proximity with jungwon.

sunghoon had turned around and walked to the rest of the group as you slowly made your way out. but before you could step completely out of the booth and back into the arcade, jungwon grasped your wrist.

you whirled around and saw his facial expression in full view. you felt your breath hitch at how intensely he stared at you, his eyes observing you closely.

this isn’t over, he mouthed to you.

with a huff, you exited the photobooth completely, taking the two sets of photos. when jungwon got out, you gave him his.

he looked at the set of four photos, smiling knowingly as he pressed a soft kiss to it.

“we’ll get back to this later,” he said to you. and by the looks on his face, you knew he was telling you the truth.

the two of you met up with the group before walking out. you couldn’t help but keep peering at the photos you two took together.

you were definitely blushing now.

[barnacles-and-brimstone]

been watching grian’s hermitcraft tour (got as far as Etho atm) and oh my god. Hearing how these fits describe their projects really does remind me that every aspect of this game is a creative outlet in some way. Every single one of them is an artist and you can hear the passion in their voices as they explain their storylines/redstone constructions/long term projects etc etc. It’s honestly beautiful. I will be enjoying all nearly eight hours of this thoroughly.

like ren and cleo are storytellers, they’ve got lore for their bases and it makes sense. scar sees aesthetics as their own function and makes beautifully immersive experiences. tango enjoys the process of automating things and creating games for his friends to enjoy equally and puts his heart and soul into his redstone. i’ve been wondering for months what joe hills’ moby dick streams are for and i am astounded at his project ideas and scale and progress yet again! bdubs (my beloved) is so deliberate in everything he creates in order to make these 3D works of art, and yet his storage is a boxy cave underneath his starter home. cub is exploring new possibilities of the game constantly. etho has spent more time trying to revive nostalgia and make his friends happy than he has working on his own home. these guys are everything to me.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Podcasting “Capitalists Hate Capitalism”

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

This week on my podcast, I read "Capitalists Hate Capitalism," my latest column for Locus Magazine:

https://locusmag.com/2024/03/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-capitalism/

What do I mean by "capitalists hate capitalism?" It all comes down to the difference between "profits" and "rents." A capitalist takes capital (money, or the things you can buy with it) and combines it with employees' labor, and generates profits (the capitalist's share) and wages (the workers' share).

Rents, meanwhile, come from owning an asset that capitalists need to generate profits. For example, a landlord who rents a storefront to a coffee shop extracts rent from the capitalist who owns the coffee shop. Meanwhile, the capitalist who owns the cafe extracts profits from the baristas' labor.

Capitalists' founding philosophers like Adam Smith hated rents. Worse: rents were the most important source of income at the time of capitalism's founding. Feudal lords owned great swathes of land, and there were armies of serfs who were bound to that land – it was illegal for them to leave it. The serfs owed rent to lords, and so they worked the land in order grow crops and raise livestock that they handed over the to lord as rent for the land they weren't allowed to leave.

Capitalists, meanwhile, wanted to turn that land into grazing territory for sheep as a source of wool for the "dark, Satanic mills" of the industrial revolution. They wanted the serfs to be kicked off their land so that they would become "free labor" that could be hired to work in those factories.

For the founders of capitalism, a "free market" wasn't free from regulation, it was free from rents, and "free labor" came from workers who were free to leave the estates where they were born – but also free to starve unless they took a job with the capitalists.

For capitalism's philosophers, free markets and free labor weren't just a source of profits, they were also a source of virtue. Capitalists – unlike lords – had to worry about competition from one another. They had to make better goods at lower prices, lest their customers take their business elsewhere; and they had to offer higher pay and better conditions, lest their "free labor" take a job elsewhere.

This means that capitalists are haunted by the fear of losing everything, and that fear acts as a goad, driving them to find ways to make everything better for everyone: better, cheaper products that benefit shoppers; and better-paid, safer jobs that benefit workers. For Smith, capitalism is alchemy, a philosopher's stone that transforms the base metal of greed into the gold of public spiritedness.

By contrast, rentiers are insulated from competition. Their workers are bound to the land, and must toil to pay the rent no matter whether they are treated well or abused. The rent rolls in reliably, without the lord having to invest in new, better ways to bring in the harvest. It's a good life (for the lord).

Think of that coffee-shop again: if a better cafe opens across the street, the owner can lose it all, as their customers and workers switch allegiance. But for the landlord, the failure of his capitalist tenant is a feature, not a bug. Once the cafe goes bust, the landlord gets a newly vacant storefront on the same block as the hot new coffee shop that can be rented out at even higher rates to another capitalist who tries his luck.

The industrial revolution wasn't just the triumph of automation over craft processes, nor the triumph of factory owners over weavers. It was also the triumph of profits over rents. The transformation of hereditary estates worked by serfs into part of the supply chain for textile mills was attended by – and contributed to – the political ascendancy of capitalists over rentiers.

Now, obviously, capitalism didn't end rents – just as feudalism didn't require the total absence of profits. Under feudalism, capitalists still extracted profits from capital and labor; and under capitalism, rentiers still extracted rents from assets that capitalists and workers paid them to use.

The difference comes in the way that conflicts between profits and rents were resolved. Feudalism is a system where rents triumph over profits, and capitalism is a system where profits triumph over rents.

It's conflict that tells you what really matters. You love your family, but they drive you crazy. If you side with your family over your friends – even when your friends might be right and your family's probably wrong – then you value your family more than your friends. That doesn't mean you don't value your friends – it means that you value them less than your family.

Conflict is a reliable way to know whether or not you're a leftist. As Steven Brust says, the way to distinguish a leftist is to ask "What's more important, human rights, or property rights?" If you answer "Property rights are human right," you're not a leftist. Leftists don't necessarily oppose all property rights – they just think they're less important than human rights.

Think of conflicts between property rights and human rights: the grocer who deliberately renders leftover food inedible before putting it in the dumpster to ensure that hungry people can't eat it, or the landlord who keeps an apartment empty while a homeless person freezes to death on its doorstep. You don't have to say "No one can own food or a home" to say, "in these cases, property rights are interfering with human rights, so they should be overridden." For leftists property rights can be a means to human rights (like revolutionary land reformers who give peasants title to the lands they work), but where property rights interfere with human rights, they are set aside.

In his 2023 book Technofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis claims that capitalism has given way to a new feudalism – that capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism…and feudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Varoufakis's point isn't that capitalists have gone extinct. Rather, it's that today, conflicts between capital and assets – between rents and profits – reliably end with a victory of rent over profit.

Think of Amazon: the "everything store" appears to be a vast bazaar, a flea-market whose stalls are all operated by independent capitalists who decide what to sell, how to price it, and then compete to tempt shoppers. In reality, though, the whole system is owned by a single feudalist, who extracts 51% from every dollar those merchants take in, and decides who can sell, and what they can sell, and at what price, and whether anyone can even see it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

Or consider the patent trolls of the Eastern District of Texas. These "companies" are invisible and produce nothing. They consist solely of a serviced mailbox in a dusty, uninhabited office-building, and an overbroad patent (say, a patent on "tapping on a screen with your finger") issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office. These companies extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Apple, Google, Samsung for violating these patents. In other words, the government steps in and takes vast profits generated through productive activity by companies that make phones, and turns that money over as rent paid to unproductive companies whose sole "product" is lawsuits. It's the triumph of rent over profit.

Capitalists hate capitalism. All capitalists would rather extract rents than profits, because rents are insulated from competition. The merchants who sell on Jeff Bezos's Amazon (or open a cafe in a landlord's storefront, or license a foolish smartphone patent) bear all the risk. The landlords – of Amazon, the storefront, or the patent – get paid whether or not that risk pays off.

This is why Google, Apple and Samsung also have vast digital estates that they rent out to capitalists – everything from app stores to patent portfolios. They would much rather be in the business of renting things out to capitalists than competing with capitalists.

Hence that famous Adam Smith quote: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." This is literally what Google and Meta do:

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

And it's what Apple and Google do:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934961/google-antitrust-trial-defaults-search-deal-26-3-billion

Why compete with one another when you can collude, like feudal lords with adjacent estates who trust one another to return any serf they catch trying to sneak away in the dead of night?

Because of course, it's not just "free markets" that have been captured by rents ("Competition is for losers" -P. Thiel) – it's also "free labor." For years, the largest tech and entertainment companies in America illegally colluded on a "no poach" agreement not to hire one-anothers' employees:

https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/03/apple-google-other-silicon-valley-tech-giants-ordered-to-pay-415m-in-no-poaching-suit/

These companies were bitter competitors – as were these sectors. Even as Big Content was lobbying for farcical copyright law expansions and vowing to capture Big Tech, all these companies on both sides were able to set aside their differences and collude to bind their free workers to their estates and end the "wasteful competition" to secure their labor.

Of course, this is even more pronounced at the bottom of the labor market, where noncompete "agreements" are the norm. The median American worker bound by a noncompete is a fast-food worker whose employer can wield the power of the state to prevent that worker from leaving behind the Wendy's cash-register to make $0.25/hour more at the McDonald's fry trap across the street:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

Employers defend this as necessary to secure their investment in training their workers and to ensure the integrity of their trade secrets. But why should their investments be protected? Capitalism is about risk, and the fear that accompanies risk – fear that drives capitalists to innovate, which creates the public benefit that is the moral justification for capitalism.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don't want free labor – they want labor bound to the land. Capitalists benefit from free labor: if you have a better company, you can tempt away the best workers and cause your inferior rival to fail. But feudalists benefit from un-free labor, from tricks like "bondage fees" that force workers to pay in order to quit their jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/21/bondage-fees/#doorman-building

Companies like Petsmart use "training repayment agreement provisions" (TRAPs) to keep low-waged workers from leaving for better employers. Petsmart says it costs $5,500 to train a pet-groomer, and if that worker is fired, laid off, or quits less than two years, they have to pay that amount to Petsmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Now, Petsmart is full of shit here. The "four-week training course" Petsmart claims is worth $5,500 actually only lasts for three weeks. What's more, the "training" consists of sweeping the floor and doing other low-level chores for three weeks, without pay.

But even if Petsmart were to give $5,500 worth of training to every pet-groomer, this would still be bullshit. Why should the worker bear the risk of Petsmart making a bad investment in their training? Under capitalism, risks justify rewards. Petsmart's argument for charging $50 to groom your dog and paying the groomer $15 for the job is that they took $35 worth of risk. But some of that risk is being borne by the worker – they're the ones footing the bill for the training.

For Petsmart – as for all feudalists – a worker (with all the attendant risks) can be turned into an asset, something that isn't subject to competition. Petsmart doesn't have to retain workers through superior pay and conditions – they can use the state's contract-enforcement mechanism instead.

Capitalists hate capitalism, but they love feudalism. Sure, they dress this up by claiming that governmental de-risking spurs investment: "Who would pay to train a pet-groomer if that worker could walk out the next day and shave dogs for some competing shop?"

But this is obvious nonsense. Think of Silicon Valley: high tech is the most "IP-intensive" of all industries, the sector that has had to compete most fiercely for skilled labor. And yet, Silicon Valley is in California, where noncompetes are illegal. Every single successful Silicon Valley company has thrived in an environment in which their skilled workers can walk out the door at any time and take a job with a rival company.

There's no indication that the risk of free labor prevents investment. Think of AI, the biggest investment bubble in human history. All the major AI companies are in jurisdictions where noncompetes are illegal. Anthropic – OpenAI's most serious competitor – was founded by a sister/brother team who quit senior roles at OpenAI and founded a direct competitor. No one can claim with a straight face that OpenAI is now unable to raise capital on favorable terms.

What's more, when OpenAI founder Sam Altman was forced out by his board, Microsoft offered to hire him – and 700 other OpenAI personnel – to found an OpenAI competitor. When Altman returned to the company, Microsoft invested more money in OpenAI, despite their intimate understanding that anyone could hire away the company's founder and all of its top technical staff at any time.

The idea that the departure of the Burger King trade secrets locked up in its workers' heads constitute more of a risk to the ability to operate a hamburger restaurant than the departure of the entire technical staff of OpenAI is obvious nonsense. Noncompetes aren't a way to make it possible to run a business – they're a way to make it easy to run a business, by eliminating competition and pushing the risk onto employees.

Because capitalists hate capitalism. And who can blame them? Who wouldn't prefer a life with less risk to one where you have to constantly look over your shoulder for competitors who've found a way to make a superior offer to your customers and workers?

This is why businesses are so excited about securing "IP" – that is, a government-backed right to control your workers, customers, competitors or critics:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

The argument for every IP right expansion is the same: "Who would invest in creating something new without the assurance that some­one else wouldn’t copy and improve on it and put them out of business?"

That was the argument raised five years ago, during the (mercifully brief) mania for genre writers seeking trademarks on common tropes. There was the romance writer who got a trademark on the word "cocky" in book titles:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17566276/cockygate-amazon-kindle-unlimited-algorithm-self-published-romance-novel-cabal

And the fantasy writer who wanted a trademark on "dragon slayer" in fantasy novel titles:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

Who subsequently sought a trademark on any book cover featuring a person holding a weapon:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/07/19/trademark-troll-who-claims-to-own-dragon-slayer-now-wants-exclusive-rights-to-book-covers-where-someone-is-holding-a-weapon/

For these would-be rentiers, the logic was the same: "Why would I write a book about a dragon-slayer if I could lose readers to someone else who writes a book about dragon-slayers?"

In these cases, the USPTO denied or rescinded its trademarks. Profits triumphed over rents. But increasingly, rents are triumphing over profits, and rent-extraction is celebrated as "smart business," while profits are for suckers, only slightly preferable to "wages" (the worst way to get paid under both capitalism and feudalism).

That's what's behind all the talk about "passive income" – that's just a euphemism for "rent." It's what Douglas Rushkoff is referring to in Survival of the Richest when he talks about the wealthy wanting to "go meta":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Don't drive a cab – go meta and buy a medallion. Don't buy a medallion, go meta and found Uber. Don't found Uber, go meta and invest in Uber. Don't invest in Uber, go meta and buy options on Uber stock. Don't buy Uber stock options, go meta and buy derivatives of options on Uber stock.

"Going meta" means distancing yourself from capitalism – from income derived from profits, from competition, from risk – and cozying up to feudalism.

Capitalists have always hated capitalism. The owners of the dark Satanic mills wanted peasants turned off the land and converted into "free labor" – but they also kidnapped Napoleonic war-orphans and indentured them to ten-year terms of service, which was all you could get out of a child's body before it was ruined for further work:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When Varoufakis says we've entered a new feudal age, he doesn't mean that we've abolished capitalism. He means that – for the first time in centuries – when rents go to war against profits – the rents almost always emerge victorious.

Here's the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/04/14/capitalists-hate-capitalism/

Here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465_-_Capitalists_Hate_Capitalism.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/18/in-extremis-veritas/#the-winnah

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In today's fast-paced business environment, efficient procurement processes are crucial for optimizing operations and reducing costs. Purchase order automation offers a solution to the time-consuming and error-prone manual processes, enabling organizations to achieve greater efficiency, control, and cost savings.

[maryymaruu]

I present to you, the Iterator oc number two, the child that refused to be named, now having many, hah! _(:3 」∠)_

While I adore the true name I finally scrambled for him, and couldn't resist disclosing it, for lore reasons it'd be best to address him with his title;

Sentinel Of The Unforgiven, [SOTU] or just The Sentinel.

This one's novel is even longer, so for those who don't have the patience, the trivia board on the ref is a pretty good TLDR! ^^);

This guy needs to have quite a few more clarifications made first, as I'm stepping quite further away from the canon here, and even more into fanfiction/AU territory.

Some background;

[We're talking about one and the same group Three Signals (TS) is included in. They are neighbours of Sliver Of Straw, far away from in-game locations.]

- This group exists in a very mountainous area, and from the very beginning, the Benefactors decided it's more efficient to use their already existing underground tunnels (from drilling for Void Fluid) as a transportation modus; turned into an underground train system for Iterator construction process. That system runs quite far into the group, connecting Iterators like roots, with SOTU at the near center (first one built in the area).

- Due to some harsh weather conditions and poor decisions the city was equipped with "wind-breaking" walls, giving a quite claustrophobic effect. Citizens began feeling discomfort there even before resource problems.

- Once the resource demand problem became eminent, the citizens expressed lack of care or attachment to the city and/or the Iterator. It was agreed upon to simply use the underground trains to relocate to now already standing, various newer cities.

- The justice system is... blurry at best. This post is getting too long already so I'll fully explain it another time; for now it's only important to know SOTU is not the one judging the criminals, he merely holds them up to the verdict.

- The notion of "a stay in SOTU's city feels like a punishment in itself" became wide spread amongst the Benefactors. In face of necessity it evolved into an effort to make it a reality; SOTU was repurposed into a prison facility. Instead of upgrading him to be able to be more habitable, they completed the claustrophobic city with taller sealed walls and gates, and a new set of laws/taboos for the Iterator to obey. Making for a secure, depressing, fully automated trap box.

Now more about the Sentinel himself...

SOTU has always been a rather reserved personality that struggled to express emotion or weakness. There was a specific idea he had to live up to, (be it conditioned into him or self-imposed) of someone competent, serious and strong. Giving off a strict, cold and unapproachable first impression. The Group Senior that believes he has to carry the woes of the world on his shoulders alone and never break, in order to be a good example.

However, despite poorly expressing it, SOTU does deeply care about his people and about his peers. And always tried his best to be someone they can relay on, without directly admitting it though. Like a grumpy old man, would chew one out for making a mistake first, and then help them out of trouble, without sparing any effort.

Would never admit it, but feels quite hurt by how easily his citizens decided to abandon him, and resents them for what he's been turned into. He really tried to take care of everyone. He doesn't enjoy what his city has become, he doesn't enjoy being feared. Secretly wished it was a lot more like something that of TS's city... full of life, bonded and happy, but is unable to let go of the false idea what a Senior should be like, denying himself vulnerability to even express that.

The reformatting into a prison only worsened this problem. The new, additional programming discouraged acts of compassion or affection. (So that he doesn't pity the prisoners)

Despite best efforts, his group did not integrate very well. His ways of handling things left much to be desired, some labeling him a tyrant no one can ever reason with. Some just simply disliked him too much to ever relay on his advice. Communicating within the group was difficult, hence why eventually many stopped bothering and kept to themselves, or to smaller private cliques.

The repressed emotional impulses did catch up to him eventually, allowing for small acts of disobedience against the law.

Didn't stop SOTU from feeling it though. And feeling he sure did....

Those efforts were too little too late, inadequate to prevent the conflicts escalating into hostility. Once an arrest warrant was cast from the Benefactors above, there was nothing he could do. And once the poorly integrated group got a taste of connection against a "common enemy" it was over.

Delays, stalling, omitted reports, "errors", "lost" data, "unreceived" broadcasts... All in efforts to keep the prisoner numbers low, and make the stay of those present shorter and more bearable. Ignoring all reports about what was going on in TS's city in particular- hoping to at least protect something SOTU could never be.

(More to come)

TS got hurt, and the lively community on top was broken up. It is unclear who is responsible for the malware attack idea, nor who exactly deployed it, but SOTU feels fully responsible regardless. He wallows in ever growing guilt and regret since.