> * I have, like most people, had the frustrating experience of trying to work out whether my mobile phone contract or the airline flight I'm been booking is actually the cheapest one that meets my needs,*
UK mobile phone contract pricing is very frustrating. Free market should mean customers shop around to get the best deal. Providers thwart that by including lock-ins of various forms (contract lengths, cost of new phones, making it tricky to keep the same number, making it tricky to move a phone to a different network.) and by having a bewildering array of different contract types.
> If you earn 50% more than average you can expect your grocery prices to begin creeping up, because your suppliers can infer what's in your wallet
Or maybe the retailer wants your custom, and thus offers you cheaper prices to secure it. Poorer people spend less money and generate more cost per visit, thus are not as attractive. Retailers don't want to exclude those customers, but do want to get more cash out of them.
My grocery prices consistently creep up with my income. The retailers accomplish this by presenting me with a trade off between price and quality/convenience. In other words, they extract more money from my by giving me more value in return. I don't see why that can't continue to work. If they start fucking around with weird pricing schemes instead, that destroys the tradeoff and with it my incentive to continue giving them more money.
No, I mean that I tend to buy those more expensive items more often now, because they offer additional quality or convenience which is now worthwhile to me. I also tend to shop at more expensive stores, since they tend to have better stuff and be closer to me.
UK mobile phone contract pricing is very frustrating. Free market should mean customers shop around to get the best deal. Providers thwart that by including lock-ins of various forms (contract lengths, cost of new phones, making it tricky to keep the same number, making it tricky to move a phone to a different network.) and by having a bewildering array of different contract types.
> If you earn 50% more than average you can expect your grocery prices to begin creeping up, because your suppliers can infer what's in your wallet
Or maybe the retailer wants your custom, and thus offers you cheaper prices to secure it. Poorer people spend less money and generate more cost per visit, thus are not as attractive. Retailers don't want to exclude those customers, but do want to get more cash out of them.