Comment by emsign
9 hours ago
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 possible and I make everything possible in my business to be cost effective and buy from more cost effective businesses."
TO
"I don't care about cost-effectiveness. I just try to find out how to get the most money out of my customers."
> the unhealthier you are, the more you pay.
I'd re-write that as "the more you consume the more you pay". Seems normal.
In most industries, especially in electronics and computers, the more you consume, the less you pay.
Companies like Google or Amazon pay for a server computer only a small fraction of the price I would have to pay to buy it.
Similarly for any electronics or computing device or component. The same is true for any food ingredient. I can buy some spice by the kilogram at a price an order of magnitude lower than when I buy 10 grams of it.
If the same were applied in healthcare, someone with a chronic disease should pay much less for the same drug, in comparison with someone with an acute disease.
Should there be any consumer surplus?