Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users • Hacker News Board

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#21

Post by dmfdmf » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:14 AM UTC

eridius wrote: post #7

Are they simply showing pricier offers, or are they showing the exact same offers but with the prices raised? The former is annoying but not inherently evil, but the latter would be terrible.

In Econ, the latter is called differential pricing and there is nothing evil about it at all.

http://www.pricingforprofit.com/pricing-explained/differenti...

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#22

Post by InclinedPlane » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:16 AM UTC

dmfdmf wrote: post #21

eridius wrote: post #7

Are they simply showing pricier offers, or are they showing the exact same offers but with the prices raised? The former is annoying but not inherently evil, but the latter would be terrible.

In Econ, the latter is called differential pricing and there is nothing evil about it at all. http://www.pricingforprofit.com/pricing-explained/differenti...

That depends on your moral code, of course.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#23

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:16 AM UTC

excuse-me wrote: post #17

kintamanimatt wrote: post #3

I wonder how Linux users are profiled.

We have park benches available now. Note: - Guests may be required to construct their own bench

[deleted]

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#24

Post by ctrl_freak » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:18 AM UTC

badhairday wrote: post #2

Paywall. :(

Protip: many paywalls, including this one can be circumvented by using Google's URL redirection service: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB...

Simply use 'www.google.com/url?q=' and paste in the address of the article which has a paywall.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#25

Post by rscale » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:18 AM UTC

eridius wrote: post #7

Are they simply showing pricier offers, or are they showing the exact same offers but with the prices raised? The former is annoying but not inherently evil, but the latter would be terrible.

I view the former as helpful, not annoying. Featuring semi-personalized offers saves me time and energy.

With e-commerce it only makes sense to put the best-fit offers in the front of the store, for everyone involved.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#26

Post by spitx » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:26 AM UTC

badhairday wrote: post #2

Paywall. :(

As much as I dislike being asked to pay up to access WSJ content, I am consistently surprised that the paper has managed to retain its readership even in these increasingly hard times for publishing in general. At one point you got access to Barron's free with a WSJ signup. I guess they figured they didn't need to sweeten the deal anymore. I still remember, several years ago, when NYT declared it had hit its target paywall numbers to sustain operations and announced it didn't see a need to continue with the paywall model only to later fumble (and decide on the 10 articles cap). Buffet has recently bought some 63 newspapers. He suggested that the dominant model of free access is unsustainable.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#27

Post by uptown » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:28 AM UTC

Dear Orbitz - I'm done using you.

-Love Your Ex-customer

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#28

Post by dmfdmf » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:30 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #22

dmfdmf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Econ, the latter is called differential pricing and there is nothing evil about it at all. http://www.pricingforprofit.com/pricing-explained/differenti...

That depends on your moral code, of course.

Which in turn depends on your view of Man.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#29

Post by excuse-me » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:31 AM UTC

dmfdmf wrote: post #21

eridius wrote: post #7

Are they simply showing pricier offers, or are they showing the exact same offers but with the prices raised? The former is annoying but not inherently evil, but the latter would be terrible.

In Econ, the latter is called differential pricing and there is nothing evil about it at all. http://www.pricingforprofit.com/pricing-explained/differenti...

It't NOT differential pricing, that would be offering the same product top Mac users for more money.

They are instead offerent more expensive hotels to Mac users - on the reasonable assumption that Mac owners are higher spenders compared to somebody connecting from a free PC in a public library.

Re: Orbitz shows costlier hotel options to Mac users

#30

Post by eridius » Tue, Jun 26, 2012, 1:32 AM UTC

rscale wrote: post #25

eridius wrote: post #7

Are they simply showing pricier offers, or are they showing the exact same offers but with the prices raised? The former is annoying but not inherently evil, but the latter would be terrible.

I view the former as helpful, not annoying. Featuring semi-personalized offers saves me time and energy. With e-commerce it only makes sense to put the best-fit offers in the front of the store, for everyone involved.

It would be helpful if that is, in fact, what you want. Owning a Mac is correlated with having more disposable income available, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to get a costlier hotel room. I would hope they use other data points too, not just using a Mac, to decide whether the user would be amenable to pricier offers.