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BeetleB 5 hours ago

If I'm selling to the wealthiest zip code, where the median house price is over $10M, should I be disallowed to charge higher prices? (Not for selling a house, but selling ordinary stuff to them).

If I'm posting something for sale on Craigslist, and I don't put a price, is it OK if I quote different prices to different people who text me?

I can see arguments both ways.

kwyjibo1230 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If you take charging higher grocery prices for richer people to its furthest point, you could end up with a system where every item costs Y% of their assets and the utility of a dollar is reduced the more you have. In effect, this would eliminate the relative value of having more money. For example, eggs could be priced at 0.02% of total assets, which means a poorer person with $2000 pays 40 cents, and a richer person with $1M pays $200.

Now, would this go to its furthest point? Probably not, but it has the same, but smaller, effect of reducing the utility of money for richer people.

In some scenarios, this actually might make sense. For example, in Finland, they use the day fine system where traffic ticket fines are based on the violator's daily disposable income. It's useful because this is a scenario where you want the punishment to feel equivalent to all income levels.

For groceries, I don't think this should apply, because I think we would not want the act of purchasing food to equally punish all levels of wealth.

This really becomes a philosophical discussion of defining price gouging and immoral market techniques. Some are clearly gouging, such as charging 2x plane fares for someone who has to fly to a funeral, or tripling the price of supplies after a natural disaster. Some are less clear.

malwrar 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How can price discovery work if everyone’s price is different? What downward pressure would even exist on surveillance-derived prices besides resale black markets? Societally, do we really want to further monetize the expansion of the mass surveillance state?

ericmay 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> If I'm selling to the wealthiest zip code, where the median house price is over $10M, should I be disallowed to charge higher prices?

I think so, because perhaps your costs to distribute those products is more too. But what I don't think you should be able to do is say, well your house was $50mm and your house was $1mm so you pay much more. Or you're wearing Air Force Ones so maybe your price is just a little more wink wink. It's a bit like hyper-targeted advertising versus general advertising.

> If I'm posting something for sale on Craigslist, and I don't put a price, is it OK if I quote different prices to different people who text me?

I think so as well. I don't see a problem with this - you don't know anything (maybe besides a green/blue text) anything about the buyer, how much they make, &c.

BeetleB 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I think so as well. I don't see a problem with this - you don't know anything (maybe besides a green/blue text) anything about the buyer, how much they make, &c.

Going with the Craigslist scenario, what if I do? What if I quote different prices depending on the area code of their phone number? So I quote higher prices for people with a California number?

I'm not asking about morality or ethics. Does it make sense to make this scenario (Craigslist ad) illegal?

jbombadil 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I take issue with this type of argument, because it ignores that scale is the _core_ part of the problem.

Equating "an individual selling on craigslist prices based on area code" with "Albertsons buys petabytes of individual private data and prices groceries based on income" is IMO not valid. Yes the very very core -borderline philosophical- question is the same. But the _scale_ is what makes it the problem.

It's the same argument I heard a few times "Why is flock a problem? My home driveway camera points at the street and sometimes I can read a license plate!"

So much like other laws / ordinances / provisions / etc. if regulation against this type of behaviors get enshrined, they should include thresholds for scale (which I believe the Seattle one does)

Arainach 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes.

Substitute your logic: is it OK to change your price because the responder is from an area that is mostly black? No, it's not.

Charge one price and charge it for everyone. Anything else leads to discrimination and other awful behaviors that we've had to pass laws to change.

BeetleB 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

> is it OK to change your price because the responder is from an area that is mostly black? No, it's not.

That's only because that's enshrined in law. Discriminating based on wealth or geography is not. Nor is discriminating based on political party affiliation.

> Anything else leads to discrimination and other awful behaviors that we've had to pass laws to change.

Only in the most egregious of cases.

Keep in mind that discounts for seniors, veterans, medical workers, etc are all discriminatory. You're giving a different price between two groups. It's really the equivalent of listing the price as $100, and then charging $110 if you're not in one of those groups.

Arainach 25 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Only in the most egregious of cases.

Everything is egregious. Private equity is buying up everything, and the only things it doesn't control are what big data got to first. Everything is owned by soulless amoral demons who never sleep.

Employers are mining data to find the exact minimum salary each candidate will accept.

Airlines are working to charge every customer the maximum they can stomach.

Landlords are using companies to fix prices while claiming they're not fixing prices.

Grocery stores want in on it. Healthcare wants in on it. Everything is doing what you claim the "most egregious cases" are.

ericmay 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Idk it seems like it's just different to me and we don't need to create a blanket rule that encompasses Craigslist. Why not just start with stores for example?

rozal an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

colingauvin 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not comparable. The markets can still charge wherever they want, but it needs to be priced per item and not per customer. In your house counterexample, you could set whatever list price you want.

BeetleB 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I updated my comment - it wasn't clear. I wasn't referring to the price of houses, but to the price of goods sold to people living in that zip code.

like_any_other 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> If I'm selling to the wealthiest zip code, where the median house price is over $10M, should I be disallowed to charge higher prices?

Yes, you should be disallowed. Otherwise every online store will upcharge you based on IP. There can be exceptions for small businesses or individuals, but that's it.