If by this you mean that standard supply-demand economics can't model price discrimination, which is what's going on here, that's not correct. See, for example, Chapter 10 of David Friedman's Price Theory, where he models price discrimination using supply and demand curves just fine. In terms of this kind of analysis, price discrimination is a way for sellers to try to transfer as much as possible of what would otherwise be consumer surplus, to themselves.
The practice — supported by artificial intelligence and known as dynamic pricing or surveillance pricing — can lead to two consumers paying different amounts for the same item from the same retailer, at roughly the same time. If a store knows, for example, that one of those customers lives in a wealthier neighborhood, it can charge that person a higher price.
That has always happened. If you go to a flea market, do you think the seller isn't going to bump up the price if you look prosperous or desperate? Do you think the roof replacement company isn't going to make a bid based on how wealthy or poor your neighborhood looks? Or you need a new water heater? Do you think grocery stores in wealthy neighborhoods charge more?
We live in a market economy. If you don't like the price, us apes have learned to say "no".
BTW, if prices are set by the wealth of the customer, then the poor ought to be getting a better deal. Isn't that a good thing?
At the flea market you can haggle. Are you saying we should all have to haggle with the harried checkout person over the price of milk ever time we shop? Or everything is self checkout and you don't haggle but then choose whether you accept the price or not?
As with many things in technology, it's not about the raw concept, it's about the automation of it and inability to appeal to a human. Haggling face to face is human. Having a bot decide what you are paying (take it or leave it) is asymmetric with the benefit going to the corpo.
This isn't government setting prices. It's just government outlawing a certain form of price discrimination. It's forbidding sellers from transferring consumer surplus to themselves by charging a higher price to customers that would be willing to pay a higher price for the same item. But the item is still available to buyers that wouldn't want to pay the higher price--at the lower price. The grocery stores aren't going to raise the overall price to compensate for losing the ability to price discriminate: that would result in less profit for them. Whether they will try to find other ways of increasing their profit over what they get when every customer pays the price that's equal to their marginal cost, is a different question.
Supply curves are literally predicated on one price for a market.
If by this you mean that standard supply-demand economics can't model price discrimination, which is what's going on here, that's not correct. See, for example, Chapter 10 of David Friedman's Price Theory, where he models price discrimination using supply and demand curves just fine. In terms of this kind of analysis, price discrimination is a way for sellers to try to transfer as much as possible of what would otherwise be consumer surplus, to themselves.
And the buyer tries to pay as little as possible. Negotiating is a skill well worth learning (lots of books on it).
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You decide if a price is worth it to you. The LSD is just an aggregation of that.
Not sure that is applicable here.
The practice — supported by artificial intelligence and known as dynamic pricing or surveillance pricing — can lead to two consumers paying different amounts for the same item from the same retailer, at roughly the same time. If a store knows, for example, that one of those customers lives in a wealthier neighborhood, it can charge that person a higher price.
That has always happened. If you go to a flea market, do you think the seller isn't going to bump up the price if you look prosperous or desperate? Do you think the roof replacement company isn't going to make a bid based on how wealthy or poor your neighborhood looks? Or you need a new water heater? Do you think grocery stores in wealthy neighborhoods charge more?
We live in a market economy. If you don't like the price, us apes have learned to say "no".
BTW, if prices are set by the wealth of the customer, then the poor ought to be getting a better deal. Isn't that a good thing?
At the flea market you can haggle. Are you saying we should all have to haggle with the harried checkout person over the price of milk ever time we shop? Or everything is self checkout and you don't haggle but then choose whether you accept the price or not?
As with many things in technology, it's not about the raw concept, it's about the automation of it and inability to appeal to a human. Haggling face to face is human. Having a bot decide what you are paying (take it or leave it) is asymmetric with the benefit going to the corpo.
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Better that you stick to promoting D instead of defending price gouging.
The inevitable result of government setting prices is some combination of:
1. shortages
2. gluts
3. black markets
It doesn't matter what your or my opinion on it is, any more than having an opinion on F=ma. The Law of Supply and Demand is always in play.
There are thousands of years of history on this.
This isn't government setting prices. It's just government outlawing a certain form of price discrimination. It's forbidding sellers from transferring consumer surplus to themselves by charging a higher price to customers that would be willing to pay a higher price for the same item. But the item is still available to buyers that wouldn't want to pay the higher price--at the lower price. The grocery stores aren't going to raise the overall price to compensate for losing the ability to price discriminate: that would result in less profit for them. Whether they will try to find other ways of increasing their profit over what they get when every customer pays the price that's equal to their marginal cost, is a different question.
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Somehow we did just fine without real-time per-customer price discrimination.
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