This type of price discrimination isn't powered by surveillance capitalism. Using the example in the first answer on the stackexchange, this is nothing more than selling the same ticket at a different price to someone walking up to a United counter in USA compared to someone walking up to a United counter in AU.
Surveillance capitalism powering price discrimination sounds scary, but there seems to be few examples of ML powered price discrimination. Currently we are paying massive amounts for simple price discrimination. You can save a ton of money (for things in general) by searching for discounts, booking ahead of time, accepting slower shipment, waiting for off-season/off-peak, buying in bulk, haggling, etc.
Their dream is that they'll be able to just use facial recognition, or grab your ID from your cell phone, or force you to sign up for an account with them so they have all the info they need to pull up your credit history, yearly income, the size of your household, a list of your recent purchases, and whatever else they can get from data brokers all just to make better guesses about your wealth and how much money they can squeeze out of you rather than just using your IP address or your useragent, and that's in the works (https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/11/17/a-special-p...) but until they can shift public perception away from viewing that sort of thing as being discriminatory and exploitative, or until everyone in an industry is doing it too (airlines and hotels) it's still seen as too risky. see https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41272-019-00224-3
>Yes it is. That's why people who book flights using an Apple computer will pay more they're pricing based on their best assumptions about your income level.
There is no claim of this on the article you linked and no proof of it. It says “could be”, which is unsubstantiated.
That is from 10+ years ago, and it was a travel agent (Orbitz.com) charging more for hotel nights (increasing their cut).
The hotel itself never charged Mac users more, and I have never seen or heard of Hyatt/Marriott/Hilton/etc websites charging based on which operating system they think the query is coming from.
I have yet to see proof that airlines or hotels or car rental companies directly put out different prices to customers based on the device being used, or even anything else.
What they do do to price discriminate is sell via opaque pricing, e.g.
Or discounted volume pricing for travel agents who promise to pay a minimum and then the travel agent is on the hook for organizing a group of travelers.
But those are both different than price discriminating based on Windows/Mac.
> I have yet to see proof that airlines or hotels or car rental companies directly put out different prices to customers based on the device being used, or even anything else.
That's much less fair, but try this which explicitly states that airlines in the US set prices according to a customer’s personal information.
> That's much less fair, but try this which explicitly states that airlines in the US set prices according to a customer’s personal information.
No, it does not. Your catala consulting link is about what hotels could do, and it is nothing more than what you learn about price segmentation in microeconomics 101.
This is a valid link, but still not about hotels in the sense that most people use for tourism/visits friends/family and work.
It is about casinos using technology to automate how to entice their whales, which they already did using “comped” rooms and upgrades and whatnot in exchange for gambling.
I have yet to see evidence that an airline website presents different prices to customers based on the device they are using (the original
claim), nor do mainstream hotels like Hiltons/Marriotts/IHG/Wyndham/Choice/Accor/etc.
They very well might in the future. And in some broad sense, currently do via benefits for frequent customers via rewards programs, but as of now, there is no automated pricing system that drills down to the individual level.
> This type of price discrimination isn't powered by surveillance capitalism
Ok in this particular example of price discrimination it isn't. Yet. Sure.
Now imagine you wan't to power it buy surveillance capitalism to get more of that surplus and current laws and norms are no object. What would that look like? How close do you think we will get to that? How fast? [1] Think vendors will keep much of that captured surplus in the face of Goog, FB, Apple, whatever market power?
[1] I'd just refuse to buy any ticket unless your country of birth and residency of your family was known, which holidays you celebrate. By which I mean make dis counts readily available on that basis (with exclusions) to really slug anyone going home for high holidays, for example. Frame it as a discount, whatever.
So that's one way it might go. Can you think of how this is going to work for insurance? Health insurance? What else would really supercharge revenue using techniques like this?
I am not a lawyer, and I am unsure, but I am under the impression there are limits on which variables health insurance companies can vary their prices on. I think health insurance is another example of classic price discrimination costing normal people money. Hospitals will charge different amounts of money for the same medical procedure and the same level of car depending on which insurance is getting billed, or if no insurance is billed. This is caused by thousands of accountants negotiating in advanced.
I am actually not worried about Surveillance Capitalism powered Price Discrimination in it's current state. It is probably happening already, but not to a wide degree. A few things would make me worry, and they are also mostly things that are opportunities for price discrimination.
* There is no cash option. There is no resell option. There are no advertised prices.
* I must disclose personal information to do business, before the prices are revealed. You can link your travel agent website with social media, but you can also guest checkout from a public library.
* Comparative shopping is hard/impossible. Ideally the information age actually empowers consumers on this one. This doesn't stop companies from varying prices based on individuals, but it does put downward pressure on prices. Cartels and price collusion can negate this.
Surveillance capitalism powering price discrimination sounds scary, but there seems to be few examples of ML powered price discrimination. Currently we are paying massive amounts for simple price discrimination. You can save a ton of money (for things in general) by searching for discounts, booking ahead of time, accepting slower shipment, waiting for off-season/off-peak, buying in bulk, haggling, etc.