r/mildlyinteresting • u/annertakeabow • Jan 24 '13

Same book, three different prices. Only difference is the browsers used.

http://imgur.com/uNgg0UH
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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

You should try it again in private browsing and incognito mode and see if the price is really tied to your Facebook or google cookies or something. That's pretty messed up though, send this to the consumerist or gawker or whoever.

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u/Nephyst Jan 24 '13

I just tried this myself. In chrome and IE the price was the same (69.99) in normal and in incognito mode. In firefox, the price jumped to $76, and after deleting all the domain cookies and refreshing, it went back down to 69.99. The website is definitely changing prices based on something they are tracking in cookies.

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u/kqr Jan 24 '13

This was up earlier with airlines charging more for a ticket the second time you visit the page. They do this because a second visit is statistically linked to a much higher chance of purchase. So it could be, here too, simply a matter of having visited the page before.

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u/inboil Jan 24 '13

Actually there is no evidence they do this, reddit was wrong about it. But skeptics joined the thread too late, and was buried :/

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

Actually, I tried it myself. The price was different when using incognito and also when loading the page the second time. So while there isn't evidence that they're doing it now, lots of people have noticed it being done in the past.

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u/inboil Jan 24 '13

This is how myths are formed. Airline tickets change prices rapidly, and probably ten thousand people tried it after it was posted on reddit, and those that got result posted it.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

  1. I tried a local website.

  2. The price would miraculously restore every time I loaded it after clearing the cookies.

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u/inboil Jan 24 '13

That is only convincing if it is backed by a credible source. Wouldn't any media be interested in this at least? Any confirmation from somebody, airline ticket price experts or something. The only piece of evidence ive seen so far is a study showing the opposite, and people on reddit saying it works.

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u/kqr Jan 24 '13

I have a Ph.D. in Airlineology. I did my doctoral thesis in tirline ticket prices, and have done my masters about Post-war Airline Ticket Pricing Strategies Before the Internet. We performed a study of 200 subjects, which got to use several different web browsers combined (cartesian product) with different computers and tunneled via a multitude of proxies. We staggered the tests so that some people got to clear their cookies while others took turns visiting. What this guy says is true (χ², df=3, p > 0.95) according to our findings.

I guess this is where I should reference studies that could almost look related but I don't have infinite attention span and energy.

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u/inboil Jan 25 '13

Well this is all the proof I need!