Of course, but that's the thing about "informal" agreements: presumably there's no record of it. Price collusion happens way more than most realize. I was at a trade show for my employer when a competitor walked up to our booth and out loud proposed that we should all fix our prices. We didn't of course, but the brazenness of saying something like that out in the open like was what surprised me.

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stavros an hour ago | parent [-]

The good thing about price collusion is that it's hard to coordinate. If even one competitor defects (and they have every advantage to, as they'll win big), then the cartel falls apart.

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tough an hour ago | parent | next [-]

sounds like an org prisonner's dilemma

	▲	stavros an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly.

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PunchyHamster an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That assumes that

* it instantly brings them a ton of consumers * they have capacity to serve those customers

if they don't competitor can just keep higher price (especially if it is just small middleman fee most people might not care that much about)

And even if both of those are true worst possible case is them expanding to handle influx of customers and then competition following in few months, making their investment moot

	▲	paytonjjones 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That's true, but the thing about price fixing is that it basically guarantees these conditions. The price is artificially high -> there's a ton of demand waiting to be unlocked by the "potential energy" gated behind the unnatural price Capacity is easy to plan around; get too much and you can just raise the price again.