131–140 of 219 posts
Is it weird to be pro free market but to be against this kind of pricing? I can’t seem to square the positions.
Internet initially helped consumers with knowledge. Now that balance has shifted to more and more corporations knowing more.
If we enshrine into law significant privacy expectations, that can restore the knowledge balance.
Is it weird to be pro free market but to be against this kind of pricing? I can’t seem to square the positions.
But if you believe in anti-trust, regulation, and competition as external checks (typically enacted through governments) on capitalism's power - then you can indeed square the two positions.
Sadly, this article doesn't explain how this "surveillance pricing" (which is just a scarier-sounding synonym for "dynamic pricing") would even work in a physical grocery store. Like, prices are displayed on the shelf for everyone to see. And they have to match what you pay at checkout. So how the heck would a grocery store even do this? And this law is specifically around grocery stores . Like, there was a big kerfu…
Even though the price goes down, they adjust prices for you based on your personal data. You pay more if you don't give it up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
E-ink price tags are not uncommon. Technology to track individual customers through the store based on smartphone RF is already deployed in many supermarkets. Some stores even do scan-as-you-shop, where the customer scans the item at the shelf, rather than at the front of the store. There are certainly a lot of i's to dot and t's to cross, but it's hardly a theoretical impossibility - find the right store and you cou…
I still don't understand how that would work. Yes, e-ink is great for updating prices, I welcome it at grocery stores. But if both me and another person are standing in front of the prosciutto and cured meats fridge, we're seeing the same prices, even if I'm poor and they're rich.
I worry that increasingly sophisticated dynamic pricing could one day make it nearly impossible for anyone to get ahead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
E-ink price tags are not uncommon. Technology to track individual customers through the store based on smartphone RF is already deployed in many supermarkets. Some stores even do scan-as-you-shop, where the customer scans the item at the shelf, rather than at the front of the store. There are certainly a lot of i's to dot and t's to cross, but it's hardly a theoretical impossibility - find the right store and you cou…
I still don't understand how that would work. Yes, e-ink is great for updating prices, I welcome it at grocery stores. But if both me and another person are standing in front of the prosciutto and cured meats fridge, we're seeing the same prices, even if I'm poor and they're rich.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I don't think we will ever see such law, nor do I think this would be a good idea. Why isn't this a good idea?
Buyers and sellers should be able to negotiate prices however they want. It is how markets have worked since the dawn of human trading. It would also be costly to police. If the problem is that a grocery store has a monopoly in an area, then that is a different problem fixed by adding grocery store(s).
Sure, haggling was historically the standard but that just isn't the way these modern operations work. If an outdated practice gets caught in the crossfire when protecting consumers from imminent harm I'm okay with that.