The End of a Fair Price: Dynamic Pricing and the Normalization of Gouging
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The End of a Fair Price: Dynamic Pricing and the Normalization of Gouging
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
xnx · · focus · HN ↗
horsawlarway · · focus · HN ↗
Nothing like
- Major bank consolidation
- Major media condolidation
- Major tech consolidation
- Major grocery store consolidation
etc... to really provide wonderful competitive options.
gbacon · · focus · HN ↗
But imposing heavier regulatory burdens has disproportionately adverse effects on smaller would-be competitors. The big, established players know this and actively engage in enlargement of regulatory scope and regulatory capture to widen their moats. Historical examples of this are Jeff Bezos encouraging states to be more aggressive in requiring sales tax levies on internet purchases and more recently the calls by Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to “pace” AI through regulation. On the surface, they appear to be public-spirited moves but are deeply self-interested.
antisthenes · · focus · HN ↗
It's just that breaking up large companies has taken a very distant back seat to imposing "good for the consumer on the surface, but actually a moat" type regulations.
horsawlarway · · focus · HN ↗
Somehow we've settled into a spot where it's acceptable to have incredibly powerful monopoly/duopoly structures in American culture, sometimes with a "third wheel" of a small scattering of options to make it appear as though there's competition. Usually, the terms these companies operate under are substantially "the same" from a consumer point of view (whole related can of worms there - see: "tyranny of contract - starting with Engels and leading to Kreitner")
Want a computer? Choose: Microsoft or Apple.
Want a phone? Choose: Apple or Google.
Want to advertise? Choose: Google.
Want a credit card? Choose: Visa or Mastercard (third wheel: Discover/Amex)
Want a browser? Choose: Google (third wheel: Firefox/Safari/Edge)
Want a grocery store? Choose: Walmart or Kroger.
Want internet? Choose: ATT or Comcast.
Want to watch TV? Choose: Comcast or Disney (third wheel: Fox/Paramount/WB)
Want to stream a show? Choose: Disney or Paramount (third wheel: Amazon/Netflix)
Want to bank? Choose: JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America (lots of third wheels still, but they hold more than the next 6 combined in assets)
Want a political party? Choose: Republican or Democrat.
Want to sell a good online? Choose: Walmart or Amazon.
Want to do home improvements? Choose: Home Depot or Lowes.
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It's not about regulatory burden, its about a clear failure to provide competition by allowing a small number of dominate players to functionally own a market.
They're just competitive enough to shut down any real competition (by undercutting them via scale, cash-on-hand, and monopoly effects) but the impact is short-lived.
And I partly blame our response in 2008 - we appear to have decided that it entirely ok to be "too big to fail" and that's an acceptable state of the country.
And it's definitely "efficient" (in some respects - much like cancer is incredibly efficient at replicating and capturing resources) but I don't think it's particularly healthy for society. A very small number of folks are sucking up more and more wealth via a set of largely entrenched conglomerates. Meanwhile - any feedback mechanism or regulation that might stop that siphoning has been knocked away.
It feels like we had a nice breeze for a bit, but we're headed directly back to the "Robber Baron" age.
gbacon · · focus · HN ↗
A contract formalizes the terms of an agreement: “I will provide X in exchange for you providing Y.” In the event of a dispute, the contract provides an objective record of what both sides committed to performing. This is how free people transact business. The people who want to sign their name to one agreement but then have a strong-arming outsider change the terms — allegedly in the name of “fairness,” “social welfare,” or some other aggressively undefined abstraction that may be manipulated “to mean anything or nothing at pleasure” — are expropriating parasites. They demand to replace clarity and order with “progress,” itself an undefined term with no end state and an infinite playground for radical revolutionaries. Throughout history, this has been a recipe for tyranny. Every accusation is a confession.
The state does not and cannot “provide competition.” The regulatory frameworks put up are inevitably captured because the witless regulators are intellectually undermatched. The allegedly independent but captured philosopher-kings now do the bidding of their corporate masters under color of law. Instead of realizing the gigantic systematic error, radical revolutionaries want to be even more destructive and bring out their sledge hammers to forcibly break up companies, even if doing so harms consumers.
This is not how free people deal with one another. Let peace and freedom cause a thousand flowers to bloom. Stop making it difficult for new competitors to enter the market. Get out of the way.
But we have to have common ground from which to start. If merely committing terms of an agreement to writing is alleged to be tyranny, so absurd that it’s hard to believe that anyone holds such a position in earnest — if the two camps cannot agree enough on the rules of the game to write them down, then they have no hope of uniting in a peaceful society.
horsawlarway · · focus · HN ↗
Consider whether his argument is at least a valid description of the issue of "free people transact[ing] business" when one side is literally the ONLY service provider, and the other is a utterly disposable customer.
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Your comment implies you don't actually understand the discussion.
gbacon · · focus · HN ↗
Sure, everyone would prefer to have all the stuff they want for low or zero cost. That’s Santa Claus economics.
horsawlarway · · focus · HN ↗
This - this again implies you're not actually engaging in the conversation. I have zero interest in "free" things.
I do have interest in their being at least some real negotiation between parties signing a contract.
For pretty much all consumers - there is no negotiation. The contract says what the company wants it to say, and if you don't like it - fuck off. Same is mostly true for small business as well.
And yes - my WHOLE comment above is pointing out that often... they are literally the only provider. Or one of two or three providers that have essentially identical terms. (See - Apple and Google for mobile).
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So circling around again to the point - My stance is there are two functional paths forwards:
1. Break up the offenders into small enough pieces that meaningful competition around service levels, pricing, terms & conditions, and features exists again. When we go back in time - arguably this was the drive that ended the age of "Robber Barons" - laws like Sherman Anti-trust were a direct response to concentration occurring in the early to mid 1800s in railroads and oil.
To directly quote Sherman: "If we will not endure a king as a political power we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life." Ring familiar when applied to Apple/Google in mobile today? (Be honest....)
2. Nationalize the fuckers. You and I probably disagree quite a bit here - but this is the route I'd argue is more productive long term. If a monopoly is natural (aka - market forces make it hard to avoid) then the people need to own it or regulate the absolute hell out of it. See - utilities.
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But no - continue blaming me for wanting "santa claus" economics instead of actually engaging or participating in the conversation. I'll leave it here. I don't think we're really conversing so much as you're ignoring what I'm saying and focusing on words where your presumed definition matters more than the context in which the discussion is happening.
So no - I don't want Santa Claus. I'd much prefer strong labor unions, a focus on consumer rights, and a political party in the US less interested sucking billionaire dick. Historically speaking - we'll get there, but its going to get ugly first.
gbacon · · focus · HN ↗
How would this work for products with even a modest number of customers?
Today, Microsoft offers 365 Personal for $9.99 per month. Is it your assertion that Microsoft ought to staff people to field phone calls from prospective customers asking “Mmm iono, $9.99 is a bit much. What can I get for $8.99?”
Perhaps set prices are not the problem. You did specifically mention EULAs. How many attorneys — not just telephone jockeys — would you require Apple or Google to hire to analyze potential redlines and additions to their EULA from every Tom, Dick, and Harry around the world?
Do you limit your criticisms to Apple and Google and, I presume, Microsoft? Are open-source authors guilty of “tyranny of contract” by offering their software free of charge but with take-or-leave terms? What reëducation do these volunteer provocateurs require?
Based on your gripe about limited room for negotiation — and for which you assert, based on no moral framework or premises, that the rightful remedy forcible dismantling of at least certain unfavored vendors — you have tremendous interest in free things, namely other people’s time, attention, and expertise so that you may have someone with whom to haggle over terms or price, perhaps both.
Apple and Google are not the only providers of mobile phones. Microsoft is not the only provider of office software. Competitors with substitutes exist today. You may not like the features available at the price point that you would prefer, but that’s a separate matter. You get what you pay for. If you can deliver a better product that undercuts the existing giants and is profitable, then you have a great disruptor startup idea. Go put your money where your mouth is and await the arrival “certificates of appreciation” by the billion into your bank account.
If you cannot formulate a business plan for everything you’re demanding, then what you are engaging in is wishful thinking, not thoughtful analysis.
You obliquely raised Rockefeller. If Standard Oil commanded such fearsome “monopoly pricing power,” that does not at all square with the historical fact that between 1870 and 1900, the price of kerosene dropped from $0.45 to six cents a gallon. Rockefeller cut costs consistently, a great benefit to consumers. Muckraker Ida Tarbell was daughter to failed oilman Franklin Tarbell, which is to say he was not nearly as efficient at serving the consumer as Rockefeller. By the time the radical revolutionaries forced their breakup of Standard Oil, the company had some 150 competitors. It was the oddest sort of monopoly imaginable and does not at all match the bogeyman in what passes for economic analysis by so-called antitrust theorists.
No, I would not break up these private companies. Such an act would be monstrous. I don’t care that it happened in the past. We can both agree on many terrible historical events that should never be repeated. Apple and Google do have competitors in the mobile market. They are nothing like kings.
No, I would not nationalize them either. If you think they’re slow, arrogant, and expensive now, in no conceivable universe do they improve in any of those categories as federal agencies. In the reality that we inhabit, they become worse and impossible for private competitors to displace. It would be a terrible, terrible outcome.
Based on data from the BLS, labor union membership is not at all compelling. In 2025, only 11.2 percent of workers were represented by a union. Back out workers who are not union members but whose job is covered by a union contract, and the percentage drops to the single digits.
<a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.htm
You don’t define what you mean by consumer rights. My conception is you get what you agree to or can bargain for and no one may point a gun at or otherwise mug another peaceful person. Rights are actions that other people and especially the state may not take against peaceful people. I suspect you’d lump in this right to negotiate with your category of consumer rights. Calls for so-called “positive rights” require other people to serve you and are really demands for special privilege. A right, properly conceived, requires others to do no more than to leave you alone.
> Historically speaking - we'll get there, but its going to get ugly first.
I realize I am far in the minority, but we are not the ones doing the ugly-making.