
Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All - haltingproblem
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/how-online-shopping-makes-suckers-of-us-all/521448/
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pravda
Offline shopping works the same way!

The price you pay at Home Depot is influenced by how far away the nearest
Lowes is.

And don't get me started on airline fares!

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seibelj
Ahh, The Atlantic. Where voluntary commerce between buyers and sellers is
somehow a neoliberal plot.

Who cares if shoes cost more after 7pm? Don’t buy from a store that gets named
and shamed for these shenanigans. It’s vastly superior to government
bureaucrats creating endless regulations designed to preserve some fictional
memory of shopping in a quaint downtown boutique while on an ecommerce
website. In Paris a retail shop has to register with the government when they
want to conduct a Sale, and are limited to only a couple weeks per year of
sales! Complete insanity.

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rmrfstar
I think it is really unfortunate that your ideology limits your ability to see
that (1) extreme algorithmic price discrimination can and will lead to all
manner of social ills; and (2) there are regulatory regimes capable of
limiting the most extreme forms of price discrimination that are neither
"endless" nor "bureaucratic".

Just take a look at the stock market. Your broker isn't tweaking your view on
the order book based on who you are, nor should it.

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seibelj
It’s really sad to me that your ideology is about coercion and government
intervention into the most minute details of business. I have a great idea -
let the free market sort it out!

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rmrfstar
Are efficient markets some kind of Nash equilibrium that naturally emerges
from bellum omnium contra omnes?

If true, it is strange that we need government coercion to define and enforce
property rights. Stranger still that we need government coercion to grant
corporate charters to facilitate capital formation. The free market should
just handle that.

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seibelj
It’s hilarious that I advocate against the government dictating exactly how a
business can set prices and when, and you immediately jump to the foundations
of private property. I’m not advocating for dissolution of the state - I’m
saying we don’t need government agents meddling in all aspects of private
business. But it is very sad that statists continue to advocate for ever
harsher and more extreme intervention and ludicrous policies.

