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Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

theguardian.com

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Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#41

Post by slg »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #37
slg wrote: post #33

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).

This is a law about grocery stores. How much haggling do you think is happening at grocery stores?

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#42

Post by [deleted] »

slg wrote: post #41
lotsofpulp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

This is a law about grocery stores. How much haggling do you think is happening at grocery stores?

[deleted]

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#43

Post by tombert »

tt24 wrote: post #32
Terr_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banning a pricing model should be unconstitutional "Unconscionable contracts" and "Usury" called--you're behind on your debt and your kidney is being seized. :p There's also some not-so-fun history there when it comes to charging people based on their skin-color.

[flagged]

"too high for my liking" is doing a lot of work there.

Some of these loans are outright predatory, with multi-thousand-percent interest rates. These aren't loans that people who have better options are taking, and moreover I think a lot of people really don't understand how horrible that can be. Call your congressperson to get more funding for math education, and then maybe we can argue we should get rid of usury laws.

I guess I feel like the term "consent" is weaponized; did people opt into these loans? Sure, I suppose in a sense, but these are extremely desperate people and it is hard to say that what they opted into is "consent" in the classic sense of the term. They only take these loans because they feel like they don't have other options, not because they were able to compare rates across different banks and choose the best, and upon accepting these loans they can very easily get into situations where paying off the debt is functionally impossible.

Not sure how I feel about selling organs so I won't touch that one.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#44

Post by crazygringo »

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 kerfuffle a while ago about how Wendy's was going to engage in dynamic pricing so that a burger would be cheaper during the slow period at e.g. 3-4 pm, compared to the lunch rush. But that wasn't personalized. And the outcry was so strong they never did it, no law needed.

Also, this law excludes loyalty programs and promotional offers, which seems to be the main way that groceries have engaged in dynamic pricing in reality -- the advertised price doesn't change, but they give certain people certain coupons. And of course, my parents were clipping coupons from newspapers decades ago, as richer people couldn't be bothered, whereas people trying to make ends meet was clip and save religiously.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#45

Post by Henchman21 »

ngcazz wrote: post #31
xnx wrote: post #10

Pricing will become increasingly adversarial. The Internet did too much to expose price differences to customers, so sellers are responding. Customers will need aggressive agents to price-shop on their behalf. Take hotel booking as one of the current nightmares of price visibility. Total price often isn't exposed until you show up at the hotel.

Customers require consumer legislation and protections, not further entrenchment of AI oligopolies.

Citizens require a lack of surveillance. Full stop.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#46

Post by Terr_ »

tombert wrote: post #43
tt24 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"too high for my liking" is doing a lot of work there. Some of these loans are outright predatory, with multi-thousand-percent interest rates. These aren't loans that people who have better options are taking, and moreover I think a lot of people really don't understand how horrible that can be. Call your congressperson to get more funding for math education, and then maybe we can argue we should get rid of usury law…

> I guess I feel like the term "consent" is weaponized; did people opt into these loans?

That also leads into complex questions like "is it really consent if the alternative is X", or "can someone consent to chattel slavery", or "at what point is chemical addiction no longer consensual", etc.

_______________

> "I should not agree with your young [socialistic] friends," said Marcus curtly, "I am so old-fashioned as to believe in free contract."

> "I, being older, perhaps believe in it even more," answered [Monsieur] Louis smiling. "But surely it is a very old principle of law that a leonine contract is not a free contract. And it is hypocrisy to pretend that a bargain between a starving man and a man with all the food is anything but a leonine contract." He glanced up at the fire-escape, a ladder leading up to the balcony of a very high attic above. "I live in that garret; or rather on that balcony. If I fell off the balcony and hung on a spike, so far from the steps that somebody with a ladder could offer to rescue me if I gave him a hundred million francs, I should be quite morally justified in using his ladder and then telling him to go to hell for his hundred million. Hell, indeed, is not out of the picture; for it is a sin of injustice to force an advantage against the desperate. Well, all those poor men are desperate; they all hang starving on spikes. If they must not bargain collectively, they cannot bargain at all. You are not supporting contract; you are opposing all contract; for yours cannot be a real contract at all."

-- The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond by GK Chesterton [https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500421h.html]

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#47

Post by lotsofpulp »

ngcazz wrote: post #31
xnx wrote: post #10

Pricing will become increasingly adversarial. The Internet did too much to expose price differences to customers, so sellers are responding. Customers will need aggressive agents to price-shop on their behalf. Take hotel booking as one of the current nightmares of price visibility. Total price often isn't exposed until you show up at the hotel.

Customers require consumer legislation and protections, not further entrenchment of AI oligopolies.

The only legislation needed is one that requires transparent, searchable pricing. If the sellers can use automation to set prices, then buyers can use automation to sort prices, making all the pricing games moot.

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#48

Post by [deleted] »

fluxquanta wrote: post #16
craftkiller wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. The easy way to implement this in-person would be to give customer-specific coupons. You could get an email that says "use your loyalty card at checkout and get $2 off eggs". Then you just give everyone a different discount and only the privacy-minded folks end up paying the (inflated) sticker price. A significantly more complex hypothetical that I don't think anyone is doing yet: With digital price…

>Then you just give everyone a different discount and only the privacy-minded folks end up paying the (inflated) sticker price. This is already happening at Lidl. I was standing in line one day and the lady in front of me asked if I had the app, because there was something like a $5 off $50 purchase coupon in there I could use. I did have the app and checked, but my coupon instead was for $15 off $150. Thinking a lit…

[deleted]

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#49

Post by everdrive »

xnx wrote: post #10

Pricing will become increasingly adversarial. The Internet did too much to expose price differences to customers, so sellers are responding. Customers will need aggressive agents to price-shop on their behalf. Take hotel booking as one of the current nightmares of price visibility. Total price often isn't exposed until you show up at the hotel.

>Customers will need aggressive agents to price-shop on their behalf. Take hotel booking as one of the current nightmares of price visibility.

Or I'll just buy as little as possible and buy used whenever possible.

The only answer I see anyone suggest is _more_ complexity. "This complex system we've built is flawed. I know what to do: I'll add another layer of complexity and abstraction on top of it."

"Needing" buying agents would be the worst possible outcome. How could I possibly trust the buying agent? Wouldn't that agent just take funds from companies to promote their products as suggestions?

Re: Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores

#50

Post by chucksta »

crazygringo wrote: post #44

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…

Facial recognition

https://epic.org/krogers-surveillance-pricing-harms-consumer...

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