Consumers are exhausted by the relentless accumulation of junk fees, surprise charges, and dynamic pricing. That exhaustion is not just a consumer protection problem — it is a political and market opportunity. The companies and policymakers who recognize and respond to that frustration first will have a durable advantage.

The USDA rule change eliminated school lunch junk fees for low-income students — a real win. But several payment processors have since reformulated their fees to be even more abusive. This is a status report and a call to action: what happened, what's happening now, and what non-profits, parents, funders, technologists, and regulators can do to finish the job.

The same AI tools that allow bad actors to scale harm faster than ever also give enforcement agencies and advocates the ability to detect that harm earlier and more precisely than before. The question is who gets there first — and right now, the answer is not clearly regulators.