Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 3)
DEFINITELY not a pyramid scheme.
Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.
This week, I’m serializing the first chapter of my next novel, Picks and Shovels, a standalone Martin Hench novel that drops on Feb 17:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
The book is up for presale on a Kickstarter that features the whole series as print books (with the option of personalized inscriptions), DRM-free ebooks, and a DRM-free audiobook read by Wil Wheaton:
It’s a story of how the first seeds of enshittification were planted in Silicon Valley, just as the first PCs were being born.
Here’s part one:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/09/the-reverend-sirs/#fidelity-computing
Part two:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/10/smoke-filled-room-where-it-happens/#computing-freedom
And now, onto part three!
The logo for the Computing Freedom was a stylized version of an inverted Fidelity Computing logo, colored magenta, just a few shades off of the mauve of the Fidelity family of products.
Their catalog was slimmer than Fidelity’s, omitting the computers themselves. Instead, it was filled with all the things that went with the computers: printers, ribbons, paper, floppy drives and disks, RAM and modems. Unlike the Fidelity catalog, the CF’s catalog had prices. They were perfectly reasonable prices, maybe even a little on the high side.
“Our computers, they’re a system,” Bishop Clarke said. “We provide everything, and guarantee that it will all work together. Our customers aren’t sophisticated, they’re not high-tech people. They’re people who organize their lives around their faith, not chasing a fad or obsessing over gadgets.”
“We hold their hands,” Rabbi Finkel said. “There’s always someone who’ll answer the phone and help them, whatever problem they’re having. It’s like a family. One of their computers breaks, we send them another one! That way, they can keep working. We know the system is important to them.”
“It’s not cheap,” Father Marek said. “That kind of customer service isn’t cheap.”
“We filed suit as soon as we found out,” Bishop Clarke said. “We didn’t want to.” He looked sad. “What choice did we have.” It wasn’t a question.
CF managed to fly under the radar for a couple of months. They started with sales calls, cold calls to their old contacts, their best customers, explaining that they had created a new business, one that could supply them with high-quality, interchangeable products for their Fidelity systems. The prices were much lower than Fidelity’s, often less than half.
“Sure they were less than half,” Father Marek said. “When you don’t have to pay a roomful of customer-service people, you don’t have to charge as much.”
The customers were happy, but then a San Antonio stake president was invited to dinner at the home of a local prominent businessman, the owner of a large printshop who relied so heavily on Fidelity systems to run his business that he kept one at home, in his study, with a modem that let him dial into the plant and look at the day’s production figures and examine the hour sheets and payroll figures.
The president noticed the odd-colored box of fanfold printer paper behind the congregant’s desk, feeding a continuous river of paper into the printer’s sprockets. He asked after the odd packaging and the parishioner gave him a catalog (CF included a spare catalog with every order, along with a handwritten note on quarter-sized stationery thanking the customer for his business).
The president assumed that this was some kind of new division of Fidelity, and he was impressed with the prices and selection in the catalog. Naturally, when he needed a new box of floppy disks, he asked one of the girls in his congregation for a box of the low-cost items —
“Why would he ask a girl in his congregation? Didn’t he have a Fidelity sales rep?” I’d filled much of my little steno pad with notes by this point. It was quite a story but I wasn’t quite sure where I fit in with it.
Bishop Clarke started to answer, but Father Marek silenced him by clearing his throat in a loud and pointed way. The priest stared at me for a long time, seeming to weigh me and find me wanting. I can’t say I liked him, but he fascinated me. He had such a small bag of tricks, those glares and noises, but he was a virtuoso with them, like a diner cook who can only make a half dozen dishes but prepares them with balletic grace.
“Mr. Hench,” he said. He let the words hang in the air. “Mr. Hench,” he said again. I knew it was a trick but he performed it so well. I felt a zing of purely irrational, utterly involuntary anxiety. “We don’t have a traditional sales force. The sales groups are small, and their primary role is Empowerment.” He leaned so heavily on the word that I heard the capital letter.
“Our sales groups travel around, they meet people in each place who know their communities, people who have the knack for technology, who need a little side business to help them make ends meet. The sales groups train these people, teach them how to spot people who could use our systems, how to explain the benefits to them. They use their personal connections, the mutual trust, to put our machines where they can do the most good.”
Bishop Clarke could see I wasn’t quite following. “It’s like the Avon Lady. You know, ‘ding-dong Avon calling’? Those girls are talking to their neighbors, helping them find the right products. Their friends get the best products for their needs, the girls get a commission, and everyone is happy.”
I got it then. Fidelity was a pyramid scheme. Well, that was a waste of time. I almost said so, but then I held my tongue. I didn’t want to get into an argument with these men, I just wanted to leave.
“We’re not a pyramid scheme,” Rabbi Finkel said. Had it shown on my face? Maybe rabbis got a lot of practice reading people, hearing the unsaid words. “We follow the rules. The Federal Trade Commission set the rules in 1979 and we’ve always followed them. We are a community-oriented business, serving faith groups, and we want to give back to them. That’s why we pay commissions to local people. It’s our way of putting some of our profits into the communities that depend on us.”
“That’s so well said,” Bishop Clarke said. “So well said. Perfect, in fact.”
“Perfect,” Father Marek said, with a scowl that made it clear he wasn’t happy to have been interrupted.
Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!
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/2025/01/11/socialism-for-the-rich/#a-lighter-shade-of-mauve
