@EndicottAuthor @pluralistic That's different. Gas stations don't change the price on the pump based on scanning your license plate or doing facial recognition — mainly because they have a large display outside that everyone can see, showing the price of their gasoline.
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@pluralistic I know this is due to a limitation in Mastodon, but please consider not posting entire articles in small pieces on fedi. A summary (even in 2 or 3 parts) with a link to your blog would suffice. Or you could put the entire thing in one post.
That way my TL would not get that "overrun with replies" look if I followed you. (I used to follow you...)
@tasket @Gargron s
See https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/ in which I explain my choice of servers, etc, as well as how to filter threads in your timeline.
My threads are CC BY, and available in fulltext RSS. You can remix that feed however you'd like including publishing it on Fediverse in a format you prefer.
I publish in multiple formats and you are more than welcome to unfollow here and get them some other way.
As my bio notes, 'I post long threads.'
@pluralistic @Gargron Thanks, but I decided to switch to using RSS for your feed. The issue is that I still want to see "Long threads" emerge in my TL, but only the first 1 or 2 parts.
Mastodon has remained assiduously non-algorithmic in its TL presentation. So in rejecting complex, blackbox algorithms it also rejects ones that could be less than 4 lines of open code yet very beneficial to the users' pursuit of "effective communication" to use Eugen's term.
@tasket @pluralistic @Gargron This is what I do and it actually works wonders for me. I think the chopping up and posting is automated though? But you’ve touched on another reason why I just don’t read threads on here very often. If there’s a thread with like five or six post? I simply won’t read it. Give me a blog post with a three hour estimated reading time and day of the week though and I will sit down and read that whole post in one go!
@pluralistic
Oh shit, haggling + AI = pure hell.
Oh shit, haggling + AI = pure hell.
The (old) American tradition (which is also a legal one versus more powerful near-monopoly firms) of public pricing for all customers is a boon to market efficiency!
@pluralistic uff, at the start of the article I thought: yes, I'm fine if the swimming pool charges me more than families (kids are expensive AF), more than students who don't have an income, etc. I'm fine to buy the social espresso in Italy and have a free espresso go to the next in need. I like fighting food waste by have the store lower the price of things that go bad soon (large choice for me. Low loss for the store for overstocking). (Not overly happy about small choice for the needy)
@pluralistic
Amazon has been doing this for a while. Last year me and my two sisters decided we would buy mom one of those hard hearing land line phones. I found on on amazon, then pointed each of my two sisters at it. We got three different prices!
My eldest sister had the cheapest quote so she ordered it.
@sleepy62 @pluralistic
This reverses the Quaker principle of "one price to all" and raises questions about fairness and transparency that echo the original concerns Quakers had about haggling - different people paying different prices for identical goods, often without their knowledge.
This reverses the Quaker principle of "one price to all" and raises questions about fairness and transparency that echo the original concerns Quakers had about haggling - different people paying different prices for identical goods, often without their knowledge.
@pluralistic
Economists should be put somewhere where they can be safe from harming themselves or others, poor sick things
Economists should be put somewhere where they can be safe from harming themselves or others, poor sick things
@pluralistic remember this one?
“We've never tested and we never will test prices based on customer demographics,” said Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
(After testing randomly varying prices on customers)
https://press.aboutamazon.com/2000/9/amazon-com-issues-statement-regarding-random-price-testing
@madeingermany @pluralistic My wife and I were once both looking at my brother's wish list on Amazon at the same time, and the price I saw for one item was 33% higher than the price she saw for the same item
@pluralistic I have no problem with the rich being charged more than the poor! The desperate being charged more, well, that's a different matter.
@simon_brooke @pluralistic
Except, let's face it: the rich generally DO pay more, for better quality. (See the 'Sam Vines Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness'.)
But there are a lot of people who do not properly differentiate between 'price' and 'value'.
What this is really about is soaking everyone, poor or not, for the most you can get from them at that particular moment. Sure, desperation is one factor, but I'm sure so is the fact you got paid today and feel temporarily rich.
@jackwilliambell @simon_brooke @pluralistic
with the "first rule of business" typically being a variation of "never leave money on the table" means any seller will try to maximize profits, regardless of who they're selling to, or at what price point.
there are are also pricing strategies to drive consumers to "pick" a desired option. eg 3 similar things for sale: one cheap in all regards, one overpriced, and one "Goldilocks" in between option that has the best profit margin of them all.
@pluralistic I believe gas stations use that pricing model. Whatever the market will bear.
@EndicottAuthor @pluralistic That's different. Gas stations don't change the price on the pump based on scanning your license plate or doing facial recognition — mainly because they have a large display outside that everyone can see, showing the price of their gasoline.
@bodhipaksa@mastodon.scot @pluralistic@mamot.fr @EndicottAuthor@mastodon.social
Soon as they figure out how they can do it they will! #he #hospital #room, #for #now.
That's not how economists see it, of course. When a hotel sells you a room for $50 that someone else might get charged $500 for, that's efficient, provided that the hotelier is sure no $500 customers are likely to show up after you check in. The empty room makes them nothing, and $50 is more than nothing.
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@pluralistic “When a hotel sells you a room for $50 that someone else might get charged $500 for, that's efficient, *provided* that the hotelier is sure no $500 customers are likely to show up after you check in.”
Schroedinger’s Asshole
There's a kind of metaphysics at work here, in which the room that is for sale at $500 is "a hotel room you book two weeks in advance and are sure will be waiting for you when you check in" while the $50 room is "a hotel room you can only get at the last minute, and if it's not available, you're sleeping in a chair at the Greyhound station."
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But what if you show up at the hotel at 9pm and the hotelier can ask a credit bureau how much you can afford to pay for the room? What if they can find out that you're in chemotherapy, so you don't have the stamina to shop around for a cheaper room? What if they can tell that you have a 5AM flight and need to get to bed right now?
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What if they charge you more because they can see that your kids are exhausted and cranky and the hotel infers that you'll pay more to get the kids tucked into bed? What if they charge you more because there's a wildfire and there are plenty of other people who want the room?
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The metaphysics of "room you booked two weeks ago" as a different product from "room you're trying to book right now" break down pretty quickly once you factor in the ability of sellers to figure out how desperate you are - or merely how distracted you are - and charge accordingly.
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"Surveillance pricing" is the practice of spying on you to figure out how much you're willing to spend - because you're wealthy, because you're desperate, because you're distracted, because it's payday - and charging you more:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again
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