Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 259 posts

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#201

Post by thrance »

joe_mamba wrote: post #113
thrance wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US has a bigger public healthcare system than, afaik, every European country In which metric(s)? Afaik, life expectancy is lower in the US than in most of western Europe. And Americans are known to pay much more than Europeans on healthcare, on average.

> life expectancy is lower in the US than in most of western Europe Could be more tied to poor diet and lifestyle, and not the healthcare system itself. Like if you sit on the chair all day on your remote job, then move to the couch for after-work Netflix and PS5, while you drink soda and eat processed food, then the only time you leave your house is you drive your Tesla/F-150 to Walmart and McDonald's, there's no ma…

So, are American just inherently less disciplined that Europeans? Is that the issue with healthcare in America?

I find this explanation very unsatisfying. You have to look at systems to understand what is actually happening.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#202

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

jameshart wrote: post #172
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I was asking about membership discounts (e.g. people who shop at this store and are "members" get 10% off everything compared to "non-members") , vs loyalty programs with individual product electronic coupons/promotions, which aren't covered by this bill.

Typical European loyalty programs offer spend-based ‘points’ accumulation which can be spent as a discount later. Additional offers on top of that like ‘bonus points on product X’ or personalized offers based on purchase history add to the degree of variation in how much individual customers end up spending.

Yeah, it seems that is allowed.

If a store exists that has a "membership discount" (e.g. members get 10% off their purchase), like maybe GNC does, it seems that would be allowed, too.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#203

Post by Throaway199999 »

estearum wrote: post #200
Throaway199999 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume that other people can simply bring bottled water to market & compete with discoverability and access to customers with established players? Or is your point that all people in a market with leaded water should be paying $100 for pure water because it is inherently worth that much per the market.

No, I assume that if anyone can bring bottled water to market, they should have a strong incentive to do so whenever there is a strong need for more of it.

But they (everybody) can't. Bringing bottled water to market requires a clean source, rights to acquire it, and a manufacture & distribution network. Plus retailers. As well, these things are often blocked to newcomers because of existing deals with big players.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#204

Post by Throaway199999 »

estearum wrote: post #199
Throaway199999 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't see you mean? Consumers pick things that are reasonably convenient, achievable and known to them. These things are all subject to exploitative tactics by grocery stores. There's also price-fixing, which famously occurred in Canada recently. Not to mention cornering a market like Walmart would and removing consumer choice entirely.

All of these are separate issues from dynamic pricing

You were not asking about dynamic pricing. You were asking why you weren't able to see the reason that consumers don't always find & choose the cheapest option. The person you were responding to was explaining the unethical realities of food retailers. There's no reason why these would disappear with dynamic pricing.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#205

Post by WalterBright »

RandomLensman wrote: post #116
WalterBright wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Government stores are fine then?

The PX is subsidized by the taxpayers, and it's a benefit provided to members of the military and their families. A military base is a socialist paradise, which only works because taxpayers pay for it.

My dad grew up a socialist. He was cured of that affliction after living on military bases for years. For example, the economy on a base on the surface looks like a money based economy. But it isn't. The actual economy is based on rank and a currency of mutual favors. For example, the guy who allocates base housing to you obliges you to return a favor if you get better quarters.

Having a higher rank means you can grant more favors, and so get more favors in return.

The USSR economy ran like that, too, on a massive scale.

P.S. The USSR's actual prices on things included the time spent waiting in line. People would pay others to wait in line for them. Talk about inefficiency!

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#206

Post by joe_mamba »

thrance wrote: post #201
joe_mamba wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> life expectancy is lower in the US than in most of western Europe Could be more tied to poor diet and lifestyle, and not the healthcare system itself. Like if you sit on the chair all day on your remote job, then move to the couch for after-work Netflix and PS5, while you drink soda and eat processed food, then the only time you leave your house is you drive your Tesla/F-150 to Walmart and McDonald's, there's no ma…

So, are American just inherently less disciplined that Europeans? Is that the issue with healthcare in America? I find this explanation very unsatisfying. You have to look at systems to understand what is actually happening.

>So, are American just inherently less disciplined that Europeans?

I never said anything like that but you could be right on that. A lot of those lifestyle issues are creeping in other highly urbanized rich western countries. Especially mental illnesses due to loneliness, lack of family unit, poor economic outlook, etc

>I find this explanation very unsatisfying.

Then come up with a better one and share it.

If you want to compare the success of health systems you need to compare just the health systems between them alone, not the life expectancy with is a cumulus of several other factors beyond the public + privately managed health systems, such as lifestyles, agriculture, diet, weather, genetics, income, exercise, pollution, etc.

For example, compare waiting times for MRIs, treatments, operations, procedures, post-op infection rates, etc then compare the life expectancy of those who undergo those procedures/treatments, etc.

>You have to look at systems to understand what is actually happening.

I just did.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#207

Post by RandomLensman »

WalterBright wrote: post #205
RandomLensman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government stores are fine then?

The PX is subsidized by the taxpayers, and it's a benefit provided to members of the military and their families. A military base is a socialist paradise, which only works because taxpayers pay for it. My dad grew up a socialist. He was cured of that affliction after living on military bases for years. For example, the economy on a base on the surface looks like a money based economy. But it isn't. The actual economy…

Not sure what the means of production are that are under societal ownership with respect to the military.

Anyway, how non-human relationship driven do you think the private economy is?

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#208

Post by wernsey »

Surveillance pricing should be outright banned IMHO, but Cory Doctorow had an article earlier this week explaining all the ways this particular ban is broken [1].

It was probably broken by design, allowing the politicians to brag about how they're doing something, while the lobbyists managed to carve out such large loopholes for themselves that it will in likelihood never be a real deterrent.

For example: surveillance pricing is allowed if users opt-in so consider how many times you've clicked "I agree" on websites recently to get past some legalese wall of text blocking you from the content.

Another thing is you can't sue a grocery store, but you can petition the AG to sue them, which they will do only if they feel like it.

Not to mention that it applies only to grocery stores, not hotels and airlines and other industries which are inclined to do surveillance pricing

[1] https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/30/something-must-be-done/

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#209

Post by wernsey »

estearum wrote: post #149
elil17 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grocery stores have tiny margins and that's great. Let's keep it that way, it benefits all consumers. One way to prevent them from expanding their margins is to ban so-called "dynamic pricing".

This is hilariously first-order-effects thinking... If any store used dynamic pricing to expand their margins, the others would just do the same and compete away those margins once again, with the marginal gain being handed back to consumers. Dynamic pricing on personal data is bad I think, but temporal dynamic pricing is actually very good for everyone and I hope it doesn't get thrown out by some reckless legislatio…

What happens in practice that there are only so many grocery stores where consumers can choose to shop thanks to corporate mergers and lax antitrust enforcement. So if all of them raise their prices at the same time then those consumers are out of luck.

Now technically it would be illegal for the grocery stores to collude in price fixing like that, but they'll hide behind the fact that all of them will buy their surveillance pricing data from Google [1].

Google will tell all of the competitors exactly how much they can charge you for your eggs, and you'll get the same price everywhere.

[1] https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/will-google-organize-the-...

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#210

Post by WalterBright »

RandomLensman wrote: post #207
WalterBright wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PX is subsidized by the taxpayers, and it's a benefit provided to members of the military and their families. A military base is a socialist paradise, which only works because taxpayers pay for it. My dad grew up a socialist. He was cured of that affliction after living on military bases for years. For example, the economy on a base on the surface looks like a money based economy. But it isn't. The actual economy…

Not sure what the means of production are that are under societal ownership with respect to the military. Anyway, how non-human relationship driven do you think the private economy is?

Personal favors do play a role in the private economy, but money is still the dominant currency. Under socialism, the dominant currency is favors. Favors are a form of barter, and barter economies are inefficient. I can explain why if you like.
Post reply on HN