This feels a lot like the same playbook we’re seeing with dynamic pricing in retail, just applied to compute instead of products. You never really know what you’re getting, and the rules shift under you.

What makes it worse is the lack of transparency. If there were clear, hard limits, people could plan around it. Instead it’s this moving target that makes it impossible to trust for real work.

At some point it stops feeling like a bug and starts feeling like a pricing experiment on users.

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bayarearefugee 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The clear trend over the past decade or so has been using analytics and data gathering to extract maximum rents from every customer in every industry and AI is going to massively accelerate this.

The only way out is government regulation which means we are screwed in the US (our government is too far gone to represent average citizen interests in any meaningful way) but Europeans maybe have a chance if they get it together and demand change.

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tartoran 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What a horrid glimpse in the future. I hope we won't get there and we all collectively fight back with our wallets.

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ryandrake 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's going to get much worse. We're soon going to have enough data and compute (and are losing enough online privacy) to allow every company to apply personalized pricing down to the individual. My local restaurant is going to know that I am willing to buy a burger for at most $4.57 and my neighbor is only willing to pay $2.91 for it, and they will have the ability to charge us individually. Every business is going to soak each of us us to the maximum extent that the data says they can.

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cheschire an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Then your neighbor can charge you up to $1.65 to buy a burger on your behalf and you still get it cheaper.

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symfoniq 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Who would voluntarily do business with a company that does this? Not me.

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ryandrake 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Eventually, when all of them do this (and they will be effectively forced to in order to remain competitive), then we will not have a choice.

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nvch 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I will make burgers myself. I take this approach with many things and services without great suppliers anyway. And I don't care if it's suboptimal because, in the long run, I'll have better skills and be protected from exactly this trend.

	▲	weikju 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		But the supermarkets will do it too

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thunderfork 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Everyone who uses Uber is voluntarily doing business with a company that does this. When was the last time you took an Uber?

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Tade0 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm worried that the present is actually living off a line of credit that will be spent/closed soon.