Hustler at the end of the world

Illustrations by Emily Lopez for The Verge

As the world shut down in March 2020, anxious knowledge workers barricaded themselves at home, scrubbing produce with soap. Fear sometimes manifested as altruism: checking on neighbors, organizing mutual aid. But the crisis also prompted cynics to root around for new loopholes to exploit, for ways to raise prices, feign hardship, get a rent reduction, slack off. For every person who spent that spring self-soothing with Animal Crossing or struggling to manage small children, there was someone else out there thinking, How can I take advantage of the chaos?" This is a story about one of those people.

You see, freaking out was for normies. In the early days of the pandemic, a true hustler smelled opportunity, and Hiam Kaplan is a true...

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