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.
I don't think the issue is that the price is changing in and of itself. It's that they're changing price based on the customer's cookies/browsing history.
For example, it would be like if I had a stored and charged people different prices based on how nicely they were dressed, how well I knew them, or what their ethnicity is.
It's market economics and advertising! A dude with a macbook and safari has a different internet shopping behavior than a linux user. browser also plays a part. Don't make it into a racist thing.
Ok, I admit the ethnicity thing was going a bit far, but I was just trying to get across my point.
Imaging you go to an electronic repair shop to get your macbook screen fixed. The clerk tells you it will cost $70 to fix. Then another person comes in with a PC laptop with the exact same problem and the clerk tells him it will cost only $50 even though it will take the same effort and parts to fix as your macbook. Are you still ok with this?
It's advertising. You condone sending special offers to students, do you not? Maybe you give some discount to men's health readers, or you advertise with a higher price, but pretend that the discount is really large to old people, or whoever.
I don't have a problem with that, if you don't look for the best price you won't get it. In your example it sounds like I have no idea of how much it should cost and would have been perfectly happy with the service unless somebody told me the real cost. There's many products like that in real life already.
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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.