This is tricky. On one hand it violates the long held practice that everyone pays the same price for an item, which seems fair. On the other, in a society where income and overall wealth is increasingly polarized, the people at the bottom are going to think it’s completely fair that they pay less than those at the top.
Fortunately it seems to be only a theoretical problem at this point, but retailers that start to do this shouldn’t be allowed to do so in secret.
Good-Medicine1066 on
It is already happening, in simpler ways – think airline fares priced based on time of day or Uber surge pricing. I think it gets very scary when you think of this practice personalized – your data and profile used to say, hike airline fares knowing you’ll pay knowing you have a funeral or an important trip planned, or hiking Uber fares knowing you’ll pay to get to your important meeting or event on time vs. waiting, etc.
I think the Manitoba NDP are approaching this right. It’s unclear how we might technically prevent this but it should be made abundantly clear firms shouldn’t be doing this.
2 Comments
This is tricky. On one hand it violates the long held practice that everyone pays the same price for an item, which seems fair. On the other, in a society where income and overall wealth is increasingly polarized, the people at the bottom are going to think it’s completely fair that they pay less than those at the top.
Fortunately it seems to be only a theoretical problem at this point, but retailers that start to do this shouldn’t be allowed to do so in secret.
It is already happening, in simpler ways – think airline fares priced based on time of day or Uber surge pricing. I think it gets very scary when you think of this practice personalized – your data and profile used to say, hike airline fares knowing you’ll pay knowing you have a funeral or an important trip planned, or hiking Uber fares knowing you’ll pay to get to your important meeting or event on time vs. waiting, etc.
I think the Manitoba NDP are approaching this right. It’s unclear how we might technically prevent this but it should be made abundantly clear firms shouldn’t be doing this.