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Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
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Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#92The end goal must be to emulate US healthcare where nobody knows what things cost and you find out only months or years after buying.
No, surveillance pricing is used to get the maximum out of the customer, not the opposite. This needs to be illegal. If anything surveillance pricing will make the retail business MORE like the health care system, because the latter already employs these tactics: the unhealthier you are, the more you pay. Same thing as surveillance pricing. It's a fundamental shift from: "I sell this product for the cheapest price po…
> the unhealthier you are, the more you pay.
I'd re-write that as "the more you consume the more you pay". Seems normal.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#93This is like responding to symptoms and not addressing the root cause. This is something that should be fixed by supply and demand, buyers should have a choice where to buy and sellers should have a choice how to price their products. These problems arise when dealing with a monopoly, that undermines the free market and that's a far worse systemic problem and the root cause of these issues. AI has nothing to do with…
There is an imbalance in leverage and timing though. Dynamic pricing requires a lot of real time and historical data; companies can access and share that information easily, and you as a consumer cannot.
Even in areas with multiple competitors, they can (and do) effectively collude by getting their information through data brokers and third parties.
I don't have a solution, but we are currently very far away from a free market in general.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#94Why grocery stores only? It’s also unclear how this will change anything - don’t the grocery stores in richer areas already charge more? I’ve noticed Whole Foods prices are not the same across all stores even in the same state.
They charge more for everyone there. Now they are able to charge more for you
Which supermarkets have you seen doing this? This conspiracy theory about epaper tags changing their price on you falls flat when you think about it for even a moment. The tags do not update fast enough to do that, couldn’t handle multiple people in the same area, and would be impractical to link back to the purchase time, resulting in people noticing the price scanned didn’t match what they saw on the ticket.
Per customer pricing is only possible for online shopping.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail. It is possible for retail. For example, you can simply not display the price. You can display a price range. You can use EInk displays which auto-update based on who's approaching the item. And of course it's infinitely possible in an online store. One example of how this is being employed is McDonalds trying to push everyone to use the app…
Your plan fails in a few ways. Refreshing the content on an electronic shelf label (ESL) takes about 30 seconds, and multiple people can view a product simultaneously. Unless the store is giving everyone AR glasses, people will notice the price discrepancy. This assumes you have sufficient data to actually recognize a shopper such as facial ID or some form of iBeacon for every single product for which you wish to imp…
I think viewing it at as a discount is framing it wrong. It’s more a fee for not using the app, and if you use the app you’ll get charged the highest price McDonald’s has decided you will pay.
Should this be legal is a question you could argue both ways, but in my opinion society will be worse off with per customer pricing.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're thinking of pricing zones—shoppers in Zone A pay a different price than those in Zone B. This makes sense, for example, if shipping costs are higher in Zone B. The bill in question is about per-shopper pricing (e.g, you and I pay different prices in the same store). This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail.
This is possible in retail, or will soon be. Canada's major grocery chain has migrated entirely to LCD price tagging that can receive OTA updates. There are now no paper price labels in the store. The same chains have extensive camera coverage on the entrance / exits of the store. So pricing can be an optimization function as fine grained as persons currently in the store . Cameras on the aisles as well can enforce t…
It’s hard to talk about without sounding conspiratorial because it literally is an unfounded conspiracy. The impracticalities of this scheme are immediately obvious and no evidence of it ever actually being implemented in physical retail exists.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#97Why grocery stores only? It’s also unclear how this will change anything - don’t the grocery stores in richer areas already charge more? I’ve noticed Whole Foods prices are not the same across all stores even in the same state.
Price targeting can help the poor in some cases and hurt them in others. For essentials where the need to purchase is high and the provider has a semi-monopoly, dynamic pricing leaves everyone worse off. For instance, think of groceries where there is only one store nearby or medicines with only one producer. On the other hand, for something like a Netflix subscription, price discrimination DOES tend to help the poor…
Per customer pricing will squeeze every customer for every dollar they can possibly afford. The more data they have the more they can calculate the level of desperation for each purchase. If they have your message history and see your mum is dying, they can spike flight tickets for example. And they will know exactly the highest amount you can afford for it.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#98Yesterday in Lidl I was a bit shocked seeing the coupons offered by their app. They did a really good job with their mixture of stuff I had bought or might buy.
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#99Yesterday in Lidl I was a bit shocked seeing the coupons offered by their app. They did a really good job with their mixture of stuff I had bought or might buy.
Note for people who don't know:
They profile you and offer discounts based on your past purchases
Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
#100The end goal must be to emulate US healthcare where nobody knows what things cost and you find out only months or years after buying.
Regarding US healthcare costs, I cannot understand why people are not in the streets with pitchforks. Most of Europe has this problem solved.
What is the root cause w.r.t. the current situation? Are there any obvious ways out? Do any US politicians have any plans for a change? Are there any discussed proposals how to reform?