Thread · HN Continuity

> Uber is another key villain in Gouged. Per Owens, Uber’s “greatest innovation wasn’t ‘disrupting’ the taxi industry—it was socializing and normalizing the very idea of dynamic pricing. They made us comfortable with the notion that prices could change at any moment.”

In my opinion, Uber has several key innovations over traditional taxi services:

* An accurate machine-provided fare quote that you can review at your leisure before agreeing to take a trip. (Instead of, like, calling a human dispatcher to ask for a quote.)

* The fact that the passenger can't screw over the driver by making fake requests and not showing up, or running off at the end of a trip - because the online platform is in charge of the payment collection.

* The fact that the driver can't screw the passenger over by driving extra distance, because the price is set ahead of time.

> roughly 75 percent of the items in identical Instacart baskets purchased at the same time varied in price from one shopper to the next

If the price differential is large enough, it sets up an opportunity for arbitrage. Maybe if 10 people cooperate and compare notes on each of their Instacart account's product prices, and then make group purchases using the account with the lowest prices...

In general, it's harder (though not impossible) to price-discriminate on goods rather than services. If seniors get a grocery discount for example, then it might be worthwhile to hire a senior to purchase things on your behalf.