Post #4277003
2026-07-30 12:56 UTC
The problems of surveillance pricing are well documented. Under Biden, the FTC did a landmark study on the practice, developing a rich record that documents the role surveillance pricing plays in the affordability crisis:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy
Companies are already using this technology to rip you off, and they're *slavering* for the chance to do more of it. Instacart was recently caught marking up some shoppers' items by as much as a *third*:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/11/nothing-personal/#instacartography
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Replies (1)
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@pluralistic@mamot.fr 2026-07-30 12:56
The problem is that as much as companies love this, shoppers *hate* it. Last summer, Delta announced that it was going to surveillance price every seat on every flight, only to face such a massive backlash that they had to make another announcement bemoaning the fact that we'd all misunderstood their (unambiguous and extremely damning) announcement and they were actually going to do no such thing: https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/30/efficiency-washing/#medallion-clubbed 11/