San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#31

Post by 8note » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #28

dynm wrote: post #11

Like most people, surveillance pricing feels gross to me. But I think we need to separate two things: Surveillance pricing is a combination of (a) price discrimination and (b) surveillance. If it were up to me, I'd probably give people much stronger legal rights to control their personal information, which would in turn decrease "surveillance". But I haven't seen a convincing argument to ban price discrimination. The…

Simple There are two ways to legally "earn" money. The first is to provide a product or service that is sufficiently valuable the buyer willingly parts with the money for the price. The other is extractive — to find a way to exploit the customer with limited choices and extract the maximum value from them. Monopoly pricing is the primary example — people need electricity, housing, food, etc. and if someone corners th…

i expect rather than being a couple stores doing it, it will be a separate company acting as a cartel across stores forcing some people to always pay more no matter where they go

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#32

Post by 8note » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #20

sgc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually many people thoroughly detest forced "memberships" to pay the actual price of the item, digital coupons, forced use of apps, and all of the other utter nonsense. I hope surveillance pricing bills destroy all of them forever.

Is the "actual price" what you're willing to pay for it, or the lowest possible price you could pay based on whatever combination of membership(s) and coupon(s) is available?

to me the actual price is in the realms of a couple dollars higher than what the reseller paid for it, to account for paying employees and taxes and so on

the price i end up paying is always some multiple of the real price

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#33

Post by stronglikedan » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

tekno45 wrote: post #15

dynm wrote: post #11

Like most people, surveillance pricing feels gross to me. But I think we need to separate two things: Surveillance pricing is a combination of (a) price discrimination and (b) surveillance. If it were up to me, I'd probably give people much stronger legal rights to control their personal information, which would in turn decrease "surveillance". But I haven't seen a convincing argument to ban price discrimination. The…

Take control of medicine away from private interests.

And give it to who, governments? The ones that can't even get universal healthcare right anywhere it's been implemented?

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#34

Post by 8note » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #14

lokar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a rideshare app offering worse pay to drivers who they know are heavily in debt and near their payment deadline? Offering less pay to people who are desperate and have no other options?

Your example is both bad and irrelevant. Two completely unrelated things can be true simultaneously.

its still surveillance pricing - the payment from the working class here is their labour.

its the same exploitation in both cases

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#35

Post by mindslight » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

xhkkffbf wrote: post #3

I agree that surveillance pricing sounds terrible and discriminatory. But people are also happy with coupons, codes, introductory pricing, employee discounts and many of the other schemes that do more or less the same thing. One guy who worked for an athletic shoe company told me that they had a special code that their sponsored athletes could give to their friends. In the end, what's the difference?

The difference is in degree, and with the point that coupons/discounts/dynamic pricing have gotten to I think we would be better off if those things started getting banned as well. The main point of all of these things is to confuse the market and make it less efficient (so that companies can extract value instead of creating more value). We've gotten to a breaking point, and we should reject all of it rather than justifying new abusive dynamics based on the less-harsh dynamics having been tolerable before companies became completely shameless.

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#36

Post by ellen364 » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #19

robrtsql wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they're all discounts, for starters. Surveillance pricing defenders claim that surveillance pricing is better because it works both ways--it might offer a higher price to someone who is desperate, but someone who is likely not that motivated might get a sweet deal. I highly doubt that. A highly-advertised, transparent discount or sale is how you sell to someone who is not that motivated. Surveillance pricing is…

> Well, they're all discounts, for starters. And they're subsidized by the revenue made by everyone else. A thousands of coupons start rolling in and meaningfully affecting revenue either the coupons go away or the MSRP increases. It's the exact same pig just slightly different lipstick.

It doesn't really seem the same. In coupon hunting, I might not want to spend time finding a coupon and decide to pay full price. That's my choice.

In surveillance pricing, I wouldn't get that choice, I'd just get a custom-to-me price. I'd have no idea how the company decided to charge me more or less than they charged my friend. And no idea how to change the price I'm offered, so it would be terrible if the algorithm decided to charge me +15% for everything.

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#37

Post by everdrive » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

dynm wrote: post #11

Like most people, surveillance pricing feels gross to me. But I think we need to separate two things: Surveillance pricing is a combination of (a) price discrimination and (b) surveillance. If it were up to me, I'd probably give people much stronger legal rights to control their personal information, which would in turn decrease "surveillance". But I haven't seen a convincing argument to ban price discrimination. The…

I think very few people are thinking about the harder economic arguments here. We know that if companies are drawing prices, they'll do it in the way that most hurts the consumer and most benefits the company. Or more realistically, in the way that the company _perceives_ it benefits them the most.

I'm not necessarily opposed to the ideas you're talking about, I just have zero faith that anything positive will be stood up if companies have their say.

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#38

Post by Eisenstein » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #19

robrtsql wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they're all discounts, for starters. Surveillance pricing defenders claim that surveillance pricing is better because it works both ways--it might offer a higher price to someone who is desperate, but someone who is likely not that motivated might get a sweet deal. I highly doubt that. A highly-advertised, transparent discount or sale is how you sell to someone who is not that motivated. Surveillance pricing is…

> Well, they're all discounts, for starters. And they're subsidized by the revenue made by everyone else. A thousands of coupons start rolling in and meaningfully affecting revenue either the coupons go away or the MSRP increases. It's the exact same pig just slightly different lipstick.

What you are saying is that the amount of money people save getting discounts is made up by increases to the retail price for everyone else, and that this is equal to the extra money that individually priced people would pay or receive or discounts, so its a wash?

This assumes that the business would raise prices to make more money from people who they think can pay it and give that back to others as a discount.

Do you have evidence this would be the case?

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#39

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

dynm wrote: post #11

Like most people, surveillance pricing feels gross to me. But I think we need to separate two things: Surveillance pricing is a combination of (a) price discrimination and (b) surveillance. If it were up to me, I'd probably give people much stronger legal rights to control their personal information, which would in turn decrease "surveillance". But I haven't seen a convincing argument to ban price discrimination. The…

Reductio ad absurdum:

Your local water monopoly has perfected price discrimination. Since water is a necessity, the water monopoly sets the price of water to "everything you own".

Re: San Francisco: Don't Fall for Industry Defense of Surveillance Pricing

#40

Post by gruez » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 4:36 PM UTC

ellen364 wrote: post #36

pc86 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, they're all discounts, for starters. And they're subsidized by the revenue made by everyone else. A thousands of coupons start rolling in and meaningfully affecting revenue either the coupons go away or the MSRP increases. It's the exact same pig just slightly different lipstick.

It doesn't really seem the same. In coupon hunting, I might not want to spend time finding a coupon and decide to pay full price. That's my choice. In surveillance pricing, I wouldn't get that choice, I'd just get a custom-to-me price. I'd have no idea how the company decided to charge me more or less than they charged my friend. And no idea how to change the price I'm offered, so it would be terrible if the algorith…

>In surveillance pricing, I wouldn't get that choice, I'd just get a custom-to-me price. I'd have no idea how the company decided to charge me more or less than they charged my friend. And no idea how to change the price I'm offered, so it would be terrible if the algorithm decided to charge me +15% for everything.

What's the difference between this and the company charging an absurdly high base price, then your discount is "customized" to you? That's basically how universities work with various scholarship and financial aid schemes working as discounts.