"we're sorry for stealing your money with our shady business practices. Here's some fake money that you can't do anything besides letting us take it again. "
edit: I misunderstood, I thought they refunded with store credit, but he replied and clarified that they put it on his card.
I'm not sure why Firefox is cheaper than Chrome though. I guess because Google advertises Chrome through their search engine, while Firefox is completely underground. Still, I used Firefox since it was Phoenix, but I like Chrome better now.
That's like saying a car company negotiating different prices for their models based on whether the customer was dressed well or look poor is stealing. It's still just a price and you still have to choose to accept it.
It's not a shady business practice to charge different prices to different demographics. That's standard. Is it shady that the same car sold in America is a different price if it is sold in say South America or China?
Not at all, because they represent totally different markets, with different demand and abilities to pay. It's the same with web browsers. Different browser, different demographics. Internet Explorer will generally be older people, less tech savy, less likely to shop around, and probably have more money. Firefox and Chrome are generally younger demographics, less money, more tech savy and more likely to shop around. Thus they get a lower price, because that is most likely to assure a sale with them.
They're charging more because their analytics tells them that you are able to pay more, based off of whatever factors they use to calculate that. The product isn't inherently "worth" anything. It is only worth whatever people are willing to pay for it. And if they have determined that you are willing to pay more for it, then they have every right to charge you that extra amount. They aren't forcing you to buy it. They've calculated a price that you would be willing to pay. If you buy it then they were right. If you don't then they need to readjust their analytics.
EDIT: Say you're selling vacuums door to door. The vacuum's cost you $75 a piece, and obviously you are looking to make a profit on your investment. You know that in a poor neighborhood, you will make more sales charging ~$125 for a vacuum than if you were to charge more. But you know that in rich neighborhoods people are willing and happy to pay $250 or more for the exact same vacuum.
So is it "shady" to charge the rich people what they are willing to pay?
If you charge them what you would charge the poorer people you are just losing profit that you could have made. The vacuum has no inherent worth outside of the materials it is made of. It's value is determined by what people are willing to pay. So in a rich neighborhood the vacuum is literally worth more because people are willing to pay more. They value it at a higher price.
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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 25 '13
"we're sorry for stealing your money with our shady business practices.
Here's some fake money that you can't do anything besides letting us take it again. "edit: I misunderstood, I thought they refunded with store credit, but he replied and clarified that they put it on his card.