Hmmm, Lets See How much He/She Is Willing to Pay?

Algotithmic Discrimination

I read this very interesting article this morning coming from China. Here's a quote from the article.

"The draft has several revisions, including the ban on “algorithmic discrimination” – a common practice among Chinese internet companies where a platform charges different prices to different users based on how much it thinks they are willing to pay."

So that's why prices change so much for example from BG! One moment you have your item in the cart for let's say $15. Then a few hours or days later, it's now $25! Sneaky indeed I say. Looks like your spending habits and lifestyle are being tracked and watched by AI now!

Price tracking sites are nice :+1:

I use CamelCamelCamel for Amazon but I think there are others

Screw the CCP.

They’re not ‘our’ friends.

Chris

also called Dynamic Pricing.
The Ultimate Guide to Dynamic Pricing | Omnia Retail.

ticket sales for concerts, sporting events, and travel have been doing this since ~2013?

Kinda limits your choices in flashlights, doesn’t it?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Just about everything else is made in China.

Not quite, in any given event or flight there are limited seats availability but with products in it’s not common that all the stock is being in someone’s cart.

In BG or similar sites the prices are programmed to go up as soon as traffic or demand does. AE in particular is the worst because everything is at a sale most of the time and the original price is absurdly high, making it impossible to determine whether the sale price is actually lower or not.

It’s a high tech version of traditional Chinese business practices.

Dynamic pricing is usual business at gas stations in Germany for years already. Our gas prices jump up and down several times a day by up to 12 cents per liter, currently mostly between € 1.56 and € 1.68 per liter of 95 unleaded. Prices are highest in times of high traffic / rush hours.

The next big thing will be dynamic pricing for electric power, achieved by those „wonderful“ smart meters installed in your houses. Everything happens in the name of cost savings and environmental protection, those hypocrites.

IIRC, US company’s, like Amzn, have been doing this for years. It’s been awhile, but if my memory isn’t too far off, years ago there were a few articles that showed iPhone or Apple computer users browsing Amzn were shuffled to higher priced listings of the same items compared to the average Android or Windows user.

This gets into the weeds when it comes to business practices. There is a grey area on how to conduct business and related prices under different situations. For example, if someone was to sell their hourly work for, say $10/hour, would it be immoral to negotiate for $20/hour if the buyer (in this case the employer) was willing to pay it? Similarly, when I was younger, a few mom and pop convenient stores were located in small building nooks to sell items that people needed at times when the buses stopped running to stores miles away that had the same items for a fraction of the prices. Wmt might sell a toothbrush for $1, while the same toothbrush might cost $5 at the overnight convenience store. Interestingly enough, Wmt was the billionaire, and the mom & pop selling the same item for five times the price was barely making ends meet… and were later replaced with another multi-billion dollar corporate entity.

As you climb up the money tree, things get even more complicated when you have multinational corporations selling items to their sales offices for cost in countries with lower taxes, and for close to MSRP to their sales offices in countries with higher taxes. I can’t remember the name for it, but it is a well known tax strategy for international sales. IIRC, China reduced their business income tax to favor Chinese businesses selling to America (and other countries) so as to support profits staying within China.

Actually now that I thought about it, this algorithm has been around for a while now. The name sounds fancy but it’s been around longer than I thought. It’s very similar to the term “Wheeling and Dealing”. :money_mouth_face:
So for example, this is the exact same thing as buying black market cigarettes! Person A gets large amounts of cigarettes cartons from Place Z. Person B gets his supply from Person A. Person B who works in a building sells to whomever is interested . Therefore the prices can rise or fall because Person B is an algorithmic discriminator. :slight_smile:

That’s a non-sequitur.

When I have to fly to Los Angeles to take care of my 85 year old father, I have to be around douchey liberals and breathe smoggy air.

That doesn’t mean that I have to like either, or that either is good for me.

Chris

Jup, but by now we already know this green thing is pure business. And once there are too many electric vehicles, the dynamic price will be the key factor to keep the grid going. It’s not an if, but a when.

I think in this example, it is considered a criminal activity unless Person A has the prerequisite licenses and certificates, paid the associated ongoing fees and taxes, and follows the local, state, and federal requirements, random inspections, annual reports to the state, age verification checks on customers, etc.

When I was a kid, our science class devised a way for the students to fund their field trip. The prof bought candy at Sam’s Club, sold at cost to the students, and the students sold them to other students around school and around the neighborhood, and used the profits to pay for the trip. I had two jobs in highschool, so I didn’t go this route.

More recently I was offered a couple candy vending machines (for purchase) and had a local shop express interest in me running the vending machines in one of their buildings for their employees. I found federal, state, and local vending licenses, annual certification fees/stickers required, the business that wanted them for their employees had to submit to random inspections for the building where the machine was located (even though they didn’t own or maintain the machines), and I had to have ongoing inspection and maintenance through a local union group, IIRC, for ongoing upkeep. I turned down the offer.

amazon has been doing that since day 1, or at least day 1001

a long time, anyway

wle

Lux—Perpetua, Unheard… here in NC the electric company calls it “time of use rates”. Been doing it for years.