Yes, but those are per category not per consumer, which is a meaningful difference here and one you can't just ignore. Imagine a price label with a small camera that sends your facial image to a classifier of moods. Hungry? Pay 15% more. As you remove the item from the shelf, the tag reads the GUID from the item and records the price in the stores DB. Then, when you checkout, you pay that price. Someone else comes in get one price, balks, walks away. Comes back and ponders a while. They only get 5% above the base. Someone runs up and grabs and item without really looking at the tag, they pay 50% more. Now imagine that it gets it wrong half the time.
Just seems like a difference of degree. You have n price tiers in both situations. Traditionally, the complexity of n_prices = n_customers (or even n_prices = n_customer_contexts) was too painful to be worth it. But they were always approximating this up until now. 'Categories' are just wider buckets over individualized prices.
Price controls will screw over the most vulnerable consumers. Small businesses will offer lower prices to price sensitive or low-income consumers or repeat customers. Because despite what you will read about on Reddit, the owners are not cartoon characters, live in the community and care about their neighbors.
> Because despite what you will read about on Reddit, the owners are not cartoon characters, live in the community and care about their neighbors.
What? To the best of my knowledge, not a single grocery store chain in my area is owned by someone local to the community. The two biggest chains (that aren't Walmart) are owned by Kroger and by an international retail conglomerate. Both are publicly traded, so there's no single owner to give a shit about the local community.
The ban is specifically on adjusting prices _per-consumer_ based on data known/collected/stolen/assumed about the consumer.
Which is wild, because things like car dealerships, airline tickets and many more do it already.
Not to mention seniors discounts, active military, and all kinds of things.
Yes, but those are per category not per consumer, which is a meaningful difference here and one you can't just ignore. Imagine a price label with a small camera that sends your facial image to a classifier of moods. Hungry? Pay 15% more. As you remove the item from the shelf, the tag reads the GUID from the item and records the price in the stores DB. Then, when you checkout, you pay that price. Someone else comes in get one price, balks, walks away. Comes back and ponders a while. They only get 5% above the base. Someone runs up and grabs and item without really looking at the tag, they pay 50% more. Now imagine that it gets it wrong half the time.
Just seems like a difference of degree. You have n price tiers in both situations. Traditionally, the complexity of n_prices = n_customers (or even n_prices = n_customer_contexts) was too painful to be worth it. But they were always approximating this up until now. 'Categories' are just wider buckets over individualized prices.
Price controls will screw over the most vulnerable consumers. Small businesses will offer lower prices to price sensitive or low-income consumers or repeat customers. Because despite what you will read about on Reddit, the owners are not cartoon characters, live in the community and care about their neighbors.
You think this is like 1800s levels of economic development?
> Because despite what you will read about on Reddit, the owners are not cartoon characters, live in the community and care about their neighbors.
What? To the best of my knowledge, not a single grocery store chain in my area is owned by someone local to the community. The two biggest chains (that aren't Walmart) are owned by Kroger and by an international retail conglomerate. Both are publicly traded, so there's no single owner to give a shit about the local community.