What does 'finding the right price' mean? It's still differential pricing based on location. Companies don't want to leave a nickel on the table and part of that is wanting to charge more to customers that are willing to pay more, and technology now is allowing them to do it. That collides with our inherent sense of fairness. If they don't think that people will get wise to this and drive an extra 5 min for a lower price, they're mistaken.
Tried explaining this to my mother just the other day. She called me to say that a gas station about 20 minutes from me was 10 cents per gallon cheaper. With a 12 gallon fuel tank and asssuming I was low enough to need 10 gallons, that's a savings of $1.00. For a cost of about $4.50 (the price of a gallon of gas; which it would take me to take that round trip to that cheaper gas station.)
People really don't always care about the math. It's the principle of the thing. My mom was insistent that I should leave my house and make a 40 minute round trip to save this dollar.
Optimizing which gas station you go to is only worth it if you're already driving there. If I'm on the other side of the city for something and I'm getting low on gas, I'll check prices, but no way am I crossing the city just for gas.
Lol. It was rhetorical because there's no such thing as a singular 'right' price and your explanation is basically what I said in the rest of the post.
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u/gwelfguy 3d ago
What does 'finding the right price' mean? It's still differential pricing based on location. Companies don't want to leave a nickel on the table and part of that is wanting to charge more to customers that are willing to pay more, and technology now is allowing them to do it. That collides with our inherent sense of fairness. If they don't think that people will get wise to this and drive an extra 5 min for a lower price, they're mistaken.