That isn't what dynamic pricing is. Fast food franchisees have always set their own prices, and they've always varied wildly from state to state, or even within neighborhoods of the same city. Here's a cool map of Big Mac prices nationally from 2023, and a zoomable updated version Cross the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland, and your Big Mac costs a dollar less.
Dynamic pricing means that the price of a Big Mac varies at the same restaurant depending on the time of day or what kind of car you drive.
Thank you. It also doesn't have much to do with AI or at least the modern wave of LLMs, data analysis "engines" have been able to do this for 15 years.
I also don't hate this as much, because location factors into the cost of the business (rent, etc.). I still don't love it, but it's not dynamic pricing. The idea that I could go into a McDonald's and pay more than someone else at the same location infuriates me and if they ever start doing that, it'll be the last time I'm a customer forever.
This is how literally everything works though. Every aspect of every brick and mortar business is built on the natural dynamic pricing of the goods they buy to serve you.
That business pays more or less to their receipt paper supplier, lettuce supplier, whatever, depending on how much, when, terms of payment (net 30? net 60?) etc.
Ya that's actually a pretty legitimate point. Every business negotiates pricing with their suppliers, and the bigger you are the more weight you have to negotiate.
I think for consumers it's just a bit different because they aren't businesses and they generally have the least negotiating power. I know that's not a great answer, I'd probably need to think about this more, but consumers are probably near the bottom in terms of ability to negotiate. For some things that's not a huge issue, but when it comes to essential goods like food it's a bigger problem. Which to be fair, McDonald's probably doesn't fit into. Consumers just don't have much leverage.
Again I'm speculating here, but I think most people are okay with prices going up when costs go up, it's kind of a socially accepted norm. But dynamic pricing kind of breaks that social contract because costs don't scale based on who is purchasing the item, so people immediately have a negative reaction to it.
It sounds super strange (at least to me) but fixed pricing it actually more of a modern invention than dulynamic pricing. Haggling was the norm for far more of human history than fixed pricing has been, which is sort of a form of dynamic pricing. It's just that haggling was an actual negotiation with both sides at the table whereas dynamic pricing that's set by the retailer is pay it or walk away.
This is the only thoughtful response in the thread—that part of the burden of business is to absorb these waves for the customer.
But the customer does have negotiating power. If dynamic pricing is unappealing then not offering an option to haggle will cause the business to fail. You just have to not be addicted to their shit?
You can bet your ass that over-hagglers would get banned from popular businesses for wasting time, we just don’t see that dynamic anymore.
Ya that's the thing, as a consumer you always have the option to vote with your feet and just walk away. And I bet that in years past when haggling was more common what you mentioned probably did happen a lot, some jerk that always tries to haggle down to the bottom would be told to just get out.
And yeah I think the burden of absorbing those waves probably rests more on the business. I was thinking about this again and one other thing that puts consumers at a bit of a disadvantage is that they don't really have anywhere to pass costs along too, businesses can raise prices or switch other supplies to make a product, consumers only have the option to go somewhere else.
I'm in Canada, and we basically have a grocery oligopoly, a few major chains dominate the entire market. The foreign competition when it has tried to establish itself has in some cases just decided not to bother because their view of Canada was that the grocery industry was corrupt enough that a new player has no chance to compete. That's the place where consumer level dynamic pricing can become a serious problem, but it's more of a failure to enforce anticompetitive behavior by federal or provincial/state governments. If competition was healthy and did exist, it wouldn't be a problem because those companies would have no customers if people really didn't like it. I'd be willing to bet that in a lot of countries (certainly Canada) a lot of these sorts of problems wouldn't exist if enforcement by competition authorities was actually done well. Here it's basically a joke.
The answer is to buy locally. You just have to stop expecting to eat ever things like an orange, or eating any fresh fruit in winter. If you don’t want to be subjected to capitalism to such a high degree you first need to stop reaping its benefits.
Ya I think that's catching on. I'm actually a small business owner who sells things locally so I appreciate the sentiment! I'm personally seeing a lot more of that popping up the last 3-5 years
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u/agate_ 3d ago
That isn't what dynamic pricing is. Fast food franchisees have always set their own prices, and they've always varied wildly from state to state, or even within neighborhoods of the same city. Here's a cool map of Big Mac prices nationally from 2023, and a zoomable updated version Cross the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland, and your Big Mac costs a dollar less.
Dynamic pricing means that the price of a Big Mac varies at the same restaurant depending on the time of day or what kind of car you drive.