
Why have contestants on “The Price is Right” become so much worse at guessing? - jasoncartwright
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/03/05/what-one-game-show-reveals-about-the-american-economy
======
buu700
_Technology may play a role. Reaching for a smartphone is easier than
recalling a fact from memory. Who remembers phone numbers anymore?_

I wouldn't guess that memory is the issue so much as less exposure to this
type of information in the first place. We no longer aimlessly browse stores
checking everything out; now we just search for specific items, buy them, and
move on.

I can probably recall the prices of things I've actually purchased about as
well as past generations, but anything beyond that is basically a wild guess.

As someone who's been keto for just about my entire adult life, the humor of
"I mean it's one banana Michael. What could it cost, $10?"[1] was almost lost
on me.

1: [https://youtu.be/Nl_Qyk9DSUw](https://youtu.be/Nl_Qyk9DSUw)

~~~
mywittyname
I agree. I can recall the historical prices of staple groceries almost
immediately, because I buy them every week and base my dinners around what is
on sale.

When it comes to durable goods, I have no clue anymore. Put a 65" TV and I'd
bomb it...somewhere between $400 and $1500?

~~~
leetcrew
> Put a 65" TV and I'd bomb it...somewhere between $400 and $1500?

that's actually not bad. I researched TVs recently, and an entry level 65"
does cost about $400, while $1500 is upper mid-range. of course, it can be
double that or more for a really good 65" oled.

if I had to price a specific model, I'd be in trouble.

~~~
pixl97
Doesn't help when every box store has a slightly different model number with a
slightly different price

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twodave
I shop for my family's groceries every week, and I couldn't tell you the price
of 3/4 of what I buy. I just know what a usual weekly total looks like. If
there's significant change I can usually tie it to one or two items that were
special that week (or that great sale that I chose to bulk up on). I tend to
just put things into buckets of $1-20, $20-100, $100-250, etc. Most things at
the grocery store are in that first bucket, so while I'll grab an alternate if
there's a sale on, the only prices I really pay attention to are steak/large
cuts of meat.

~~~
Cthulhu_
It's actually a rough indication of your wealth; there was an article the
other day that categorized people by wealth based on what purchases they don't
really have to think about (can't find it in quick order). Not having to
nitpick about common groceries puts you comfortably in the middle class; the
next step would be the ability to just go on vacation several times a year
without really worrying about it. Then it's stuff like cars and big purchases
like that, then houses, then idk, yachts? Elections? Countries?

~~~
aganders3
Stewart Butterfield discussed this when he was on "How I Built This"

[https://www.npr.org/2018/07/27/633164558/slack-flickr-
stewar...](https://www.npr.org/2018/07/27/633164558/slack-flickr-stewart-
butterfield)

------
b0rsuk
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly)

Confusopoly (aka Dilbert's confusopoly) is confusing marketing designed to
prevent the buyer making informed decisions.

(...) The term has been adopted by economists. Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau director Richard Cordray, championing meaningful regulation for the
financial industry, used the term confusopoly to refer to large financial
institutions (Cordray 2014, 4'04"-4'26") :

"There's actually an economic term for this; it's called "Confusopoly." If
[the sellers] can confuse the consumer enough then the consumers won't
necessary know what choice they're making and they can be talked into just
about anything." — Richard Cordray, 2014/01/08

~~~
strbean
I love this concept. This perfectly describes the state of pretty much all
consumer markets today, and one of the biggest pitfalls of free-market
capitalism. Also, it feeds in to my always-shouted-down argument that
advertising/marketing is generally a counter-productive economic broken window
(not counter-productive for a given business, but counter-productive as a
whole).

~~~
b0rsuk
I wish I could PM this to you because it's third time I post the link:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20577142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20577142)

Advertising is cancer on society. Very thoughtful points.

~~~
strbean
Added to my reading list, thanks!

------
duxup
I gotta admit. I was / am always amazed that they are as accurate as they are.

Like outside of a couple products I probabbly can't tell you what most
groceries or consumer products cost. There's just so many to keep track of,
and that's saying something as I shop / cook a great deal.

I seriously would dramatically under or overbid on a can of soup.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
(Wasn't able to read the article through the paywall) Does Price is Right use
MSRP or what? Because I'll usually just look at my options and choose my
lowest one - I have no idea what I should be paying for something.

~~~
ljcn
> Wasn't able to read the article through the paywall

Try turning off javascript.

~~~
steviedotboston
[https://remove-js.com/https://www.economist.com/united-
state...](https://remove-js.com/https://www.economist.com/united-
states/2020/03/05/what-one-game-show-reveals-about-the-american-economy)

------
TetOn
I'd say it's more indicative of the randomness of contestant inclusion than
anything else. Are the rates of "regular watcher" contestants decreasing? Have
the producers changed the type of contestant they decide to include?

To be truly effective at these games, you needed to be watching what the
accepted _show_ price of items were...you never could assume your local store
price or dealership price.

------
jdlyga
For me, the prices can vary widely depending on what store you shop at. A can
of Classico spaghetti sauce at my local store is $3.50. But the same can,
volume, and flavor on Amazon is $1.99.

~~~
zaroth
Yes but on Amazon you are buying “Classico” versus at the store you are buying
_Classico_.

------
Shivetya
Going with their mentioned larger number of products but also throw out that
manufacturers are good at creating similar products that have minor
differences to benefit certain large retailers; some of which could use this
to avoid price matching. throw in confusion between MSRP and actual pricing
and not knowing which price they use would add to the confusion

------
ses1984
The prices of things fluctuate so much. The price of the same product in
different stores or the same product in the same store on different days can
vary wildly. How many things these days have fixed prices? Iphones? Teslas?
Mail order mattresses?

------
jerf
Can't get through the paywall, but some of it is that the Price is Right has
deliberately made it harder, which I think is something you can't ignore:

[https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-
right-p...](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-
perfect-bid-0810/) :

"Terry Kniess studied prices. He saw that virtually every prize on The Price
Is Right, from a pack of gum to the flashiest car, repeated. He and Linda
memorized their values the way Terry had learned to count cards. When they
felt they were ready, they made their way to California.... "Actual retail
price, $23,743," Carey said. "You got it right on the nose. You win both
Showcases.""

"The producers no longer rely on Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup; now they
have different soups. They have different everything. They've built more luck
into the games, dumb luck, and they've started doing sneaky things like
changing the options on the cars — adding floor mats, taking away the stereo
system — to mess with the prices. And they've started adding more luxury
items, like Burberry coats, the sorts of things for which ordinary people who
have lived their ordinary lives would never have clipped a coupon."

You can study for the Price is Right right now:
[https://quizlet.com/218097429/the-price-is-right-study-
guide...](https://quizlet.com/218097429/the-price-is-right-study-guide-flash-
cards/)

Though I don't vouch for how accurate that's going to be after the changes.

Based on what I could read of the article, and what other people are saying in
response, I suspect the article is basically ruined by the fact that it was
deliberately made harder. Of course after it was deliberately made harder,
people did worse. There's not a lot of conclusions to be drawn from that data
point, even trendy ones like "addiction to cell phones", which may ruin 90% of
the people's memories but another fraction may be using their cell phones to
run SRS programs to memorize everything. (You can waste a lot of time on cell
phones, sure, but they can be powerfully turned to the light side if you take
a bit of time to figure out how.)

~~~
wnissen
I think you have the reason exactly right. The producers got lazy on the
prices and only recently have gone back to more difficult pricing.

------
swarnie_
Maybe technology is to blame but in a different way. Its well accepted now
that a person will be offered two different prices for a product or service
depending on a wide number of factors.

Included but not limited to: New/repeat customer, country of connection,
device used to connect, previous purchasing or even searching habits.

You can test this in the UK by searching for a holiday. Do it once on an
android phone using your normal account and then do it again via a macbook as
a guest of the site.

------
dang
Related from 3 months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21623599](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21623599)

and from 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15986984](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15986984)

------
sparcpile
The article was behind a paywall, but in the past few years, the show has been
getting away from staple goods to make it more difficult for contestants to
win.

The Perfect Bid
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdFKZtZop7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdFKZtZop7A))
went over this in more detail after a player and long time watcher (Ted
Slauson) managed to win both showcases. For years, the show had used a set of
household goods that had a consistent price. Ted memorized all of the prices
and won both showcases at the end.

The producer freaked out over the incident and started to use more items and
ones that add-ons that made guessing the price more difficult. They did that
because they didn't want their winnings budget blown out. In recent years,
they have been using more generic items like 'free utilities for a year' to
make it more random.

~~~
jshevek
Turning off JavaScript disables the paywall.

~~~
wvenable
I noticed that it actually flashes the full content for one second before
loading the paywall. If I quickly pressed the "reader view" button in my
browser I could read the whole article without the paywall.

/ hacker skillz /

------
lonelappde
In addition to other good comments here, "prices" don't exist as inherent
attributes anymore. Everything is variably priced and has multiple discounts
applied, so no one knows the meaningless "retail price" of what they buy. They
just see what the offer is on the day they shop.

TPIR is a very US show. In most of the world, especially going back to when
the show began, the idea of a product having "a" price is laughably absurd.
Everything is haggled over.

------
alecco
For me, The Economist is the prime example of the Murray Gell-Mann amnesia
effect. They are so off on topics I happen to know about. And yet I feel like
I can trust them with whatever wacky eye-catching theory they conjure.

~~~
viburnum
It really is. I read it cover to cover for ten years before I caught on (I’m a
slow learner).

This podcast episode is about the history of The Economist. It’s really
interesting:

[https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-98-the-refined-
so...](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-98-the-refined-sociopathy-
of-the-economist)

------
m3kw9
Maybe they are less piece conscious than before. There seem to be less coupon
cutting with data analytics applying constant sales to attract buyers. Prices
are skewed this way.

~~~
droidist2
That's true, also food makes up a lower portion of people's expenses these
days, with housing taking a higher amount.

