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For the love of anything holy. Then they’ll require to install a shitty app to shop at the grocery store in the first place. No, thank you
I shop at Jewel (which is currently under threat of being taken over by Kroger) and they’re now doing this thing where there will be, for instance, peaches, under a huge sign showing an incredible deal. Then you look at it and realize that the price isn’t discounted at all unless you install a “Jewel App” and use it to “claim” a “digital coupon.”
Kroger also does that :(
At least with Kroger you don’t have to have the app, you can use their website for everything
Two major supermarkets do this in the UK now. I fucking hate it, it should be illegal. I also noticed recently a store with digital price labels. Combine the two and we’re marching towards the news in the post at a breakneck speed.
Many supermarkets do adjust their prices based on the average income of the location they’re in, so this isn’t really different in some ways.
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I’ve been shopping at shitty Jewels all my life and I’m moving to an area where I can choose Jewel or Mariano’s. I was super excited to find this out until they announced as part of the merger, they would sell off a bunch of stores most of which are Mariano’s including the one I would have started going to. I Reeeeeeally hope the merger doesn’t go through.
How is that legal?
Regulatory capture and the Federal Trade Commission asleep at the wheel.
Big Y in the Northeast does that well. That’s probably the biggest reason why I don’t regularly shop there anymore
I think I still have a “gold coin” floating around somewhere from their previous system.
ShopRite by me is doing that.
We mostly stopped buying at ShopRite (mostly, because there are some things we can only get there due to dietary restrictions, and they carry things others don’t).
I don’t think we were the only ones though, because that was gone the last time we were there. It could also be due to the Stop and Shop being “digital coupons only” and being forced to close recently. Don’t know for certain. It could just have been a test run for them and they will bring it back later, no idea.
Either way, I have no interest in having their app on my phone. I toyed with the idea of using a cheap tablet I’ve got and don’t touch to install the app on it and connect to in store wifi only.
If I have to install spyware or open a link at a physical location, my top priority is to leave.
A local grocery store has kinda done something like this? Just not as extreme as needing an app to shop. They literally took out all the coupons from the mail ads and they have you install their app for coupons. Which makes you run through hoops to install and make an account. I tried doing it in store but I gave up because of how annoying it was and all the information they needed. Just to used a god damn coupon… I miss the little red coupon dispensers in stores.
If you’re on the billionaire whitelist, you pay even lower than the people in poverty.
Saw an interview with a guy (on Bloomberg actually) who explained that “ability to pay” and “willingness to pay” are two different things and that the pricing system doesn’t target people who have a lot of money (“ability to pay”) but rather people who have fewer options.
Like, if the app knows that you don’t have a car and this is the only grocery store you can walk to, you will pay a higher price.
Yikes
don’t worry. prices will come down when albertsons and kroger merge. large corps are just more efficient.
They treat their workers better, too. And pay them more. /s
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I actually do worry about this. Im such a sarcastic person and I can’t keep from doing it on the web but I wonder if every comment is going to birth a new cult. And this comment I want to be clear is 100% not sarcastic, I truly feel this way. nowadays is nuts.
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Ill staple it to my tps reports.
So elegantly written - thank you!
This way maybe a banana could cost $10
Is that… Is that not what it costs now?
I can pick up a bunch for 1.59€ at Aldi. The catch is that they are not ripe yet, so I have to leave them on the kitchen counter for 3 days before eating them.
10 ruppees here About 1/80 th of that price
Haha but your salary is also 1/80000
never gonna give you “up”. EVER!
I get a bushel for 88¢ where I live.
Well, I get paid 25¢ to eat bananas, so I win.
If this happens… You can bet your ass my unemployed relative is going to be the one buying all the groceries with cash.
No cash? Well it turns out the untaxed gift allowance is $18,000, or $1500/mo, more than enough for all the groceries of a large family.
So they’ll have to price small quantities low and go up from there to prevent TaskRabbits / Craigslisters from running this as a business
So instead of taxing millionaires fairly… It’s come to this.
How much could a banana cost? Ten dollars???!!!
Go see a star war
Demonstrating the inherent contradiction of capitalism in practice.
Capitalism is allegedly the only fair way to price things, via the “Price Mechanism”. However, capitalists have simultaneously been creaming their pants at the idea of charging specific people or people in specific situations more, because they can get more profit, in service of Profit Maximization.
I’m sure I’ll get a lecture on how they are not at all mutually exclusive but I don’t care, honestly. It’s either going to price gouge when the customer is perceived to be in more need (low battery pricing for taxi apps) or have a price based on the customer’s ability to pay… at which point why not socialism?
Essentially, the capitalist will support what is best for themselves and make up reasons why it theoretically might benefit consumers (but not really).
When people talk about the benefits of capitalism, what they’re generally really talking about are the benefits of perfect competition.
The capitalists themselves, of course, absolutely hate perfect competition with the burning wrath of a thousand suns.
I think perfect competition is impossible. The incentive is not to compete fairly, it’s to maximize profits and the most effective ways to maximize profits are anticompetitive, exploitative, or both. Anyone arguing for a society built around such a system is either naive or trying to buy more time with false hopes.
Virtually every condition in the ideal scenario is a barrier for profit, and I don’t think any civilization has managed even a single one of those conditions. There will always be actors looking to take advantage of any loopholes or create unregulated markets.
It’s just not a system that is sustainable. The incentives are simply wrong and the society built around those incentives can’t maintain a system of perfect conditions even if one were to exist.
I think perfect competition is impossible.
It is an ideal to be approached asymptotically, and a correct goal for consumer-protection regulation. Consider for example antitrust law, truth-in-advertising laws, product safety standards, etc. and how they directly match up with and promote those conditions.
It’s just not a system that is sustainable. The incentives are simply wrong and the society built around those incentives can’t maintain a system of perfect conditions even if one were to exist.
It’s not a system that is sustainable in a liassez-faire libertarian Hellscape, because of course capitalism left unchecked devolves into cartels. But it is a system that can be maintained with appropriate regulation.
A theory to use as a standard for regulation assuming you are restrained to a capitalist system, maybe.
But it is a system that can be maintained with appropriate regulation.
The nature of Capitalism requires that some have while others have not. Many of those among the capitalist class will use the full force of their power to obstruct and corrupt regulation, find loopholes, and obtain more power. Regulatory capture, pivoting to the bleeding edge of industry where nobody knows how to regulate yet (financial derivatives, crypto, AI), or just leading a coup - they’ll find a way.
The only way is something that resembles socialism, but you can call it “appropriate regulation” if it makes you feel better. Sure, competition has its place… but it doesn’t belong anywhere near basic human needs.
Mind if I call it market socialism?
Market socialism can be distinguished from the concept of the mixed economy because most models of market socialism propose complete and self-regulating systems, unlike the mixed economy. While social democracy aims to achieve greater economic stability and equality through policy measures such as taxes, subsidies, and social welfare programs, market socialism aims to achieve similar goals through changing patterns of enterprise ownership and management.
I mind if you are simultaneously linking to a Wikipedia article defining it as being completely self regulated, lacking any form of social welfare.
Capitalism’s problem is that, ultimately, it’s “compete” or die because you need to work to afford to live. I’m not necessarily advocating for the nationalization of all industries or a command economy. There can be competition, but the playing field needs to be leveled first. Workers owning the enterprise as a collective is a step in the right direction but that still leaves the door open for “B2B” exploitation when an enterprise’s failure can mean its workers now cannot afford to live.
Then they get mad when people start stealing shit
At this point in time if I saw a group of people just plundering the joint I would say they are doing nothing wrong. In fact, they are morally upright for doing that.
The price tags are digital? Whoops I’m so clumsy, constantly stumbling into the shelves and breaking the tags.
This isn’t new. Websites have had higher prices when browsed with a Mac than when browsed with Linux.
Or price manipulated by postal codes via geo-IP or your profile’s shipping or billing address.
Plus returning visits. Airlines have been caught charging higher prices to someone who returns later to purchase an airfare that they previously looked at.
Interesting. Progressive private taxation.
All this time I thought we’d eat the rich. Turns out they’ll eventually just eat each other instead.
They will eat us
Will? They have feasted upon us.
Have? Are. Will continue to. Etc.
It’s a bit like agar.io really
No, this is the rich trying to rest the middle class.
Also known as wealth hoarding.
The rich get richer…
“Private taxation” is just price gouging.
Progressive
Oh you sweet summer child…
Progressive taxes are not the same as ‘progressive’ in terms of social politics.
Progressive taxes are how our tax brackets work. The more you make, the more you pay. This is them saying private companies will use progressive taxation as their model for pricing goods.
Yes, I know. You’re a sweet summer child if you think these algorithms will be used to consistently make wealthier people pay more, as opposed to (for example) charging poor people without cars more because they can’t as easily go to a different store.
They will exploit every customer to the maximum extent that they can. Rich customers may have more ability to pay, but they also have more resiliency and options to resist the exploitation. It does not seem likely that the price discrimination would really end up as progressive in the taxation sense as you hope.
I think it’s cute that people think the dynamic pricing is charging the poor less,
If you see someone shoplifting anything from Kroger or one of their subsidiaries, no you didn’t. Now cause a distraction while that shoplifter does the Lord’s work.
Amen
Being poor is expensive as hell. Ironically being richer makes things around you cheaper.
Which is why parents need to teach their kids about the realities of life. Modern life, specifically. And prioritize them accordingly.
Fediverse has a real Hoffman vibe sometimes and I’m here for it
Charging the poor more is, first and foremost, stupid. Giving them bad products and/or services that will cost them more in the long run? That I can see. But you never want to charge them more upfront. You’ll always want to charge the rich more, because the rich have more money and are more willing to spend it (when it benefits them), and you want them to give you that money.
Joel Spolsky wrote a great post about this two decades ago (and it’s still relevant today). The idea is as follows:
Lets say you have two potential customers - one rich who can afford to buy your product for $2 and one poor who can only afford to buy it for $1. If you charge $1 you’ll be able to sell it to both of them and get $2. If you charge $2 you’ll only sell to the rich - also getting $2.
Joel says that if you find a way (e.g. - by creating different versions) to sell it to the rich customer for $2 and the poor customer for $1 - you’ll get $3. Which is more than $2.
You, on the other hand, suggest that it’s going to get offered to the rich customer for $1 and the poor customer for $2. But then the poor customer won’t be able to afford it. They won’t be it or maybe even steal it - either way you won’t get $2 from them. You’ll only get the $1 from the rich customer.
$1 is less than $3. It’s even less than $1. If you want to earn money - this is the worst outcome. Why do you think capitalists hate the poor more than they love money?
This is why so much money is being pumped into AI. This is the future and our politicians are too old to understand any of it. It isn’t sentience you should be worried about folks.
Yup too many people worry about what happens after AI gains sentience. When we need to worry about what happens before.
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Ironically post-singularity AIs might be more like Master Computer from Tron. Just believing they are super efficient and can run things better. But to whose benefit?
I have the vision that AI will eventually replace all the CEOs, being even more efficient than them at whatever their job is. This means even more exploitation of workers, hoarding of wealth, and putting profits above all else. The true nightmare. I think that AI will eventually turn all corporations into pure evil, and turn all humans against AI and therefore corporations. That will result in a civil war - humans vs machines. Eventually, humans will be able to save themselves, but only by putting capitalism and the system of ever rising profits to the grave for good.
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Also now I understand why AIs often want to wipe out all of humanity…
You thought it was a coincidence the Helldiver bots are socialists?
No. They broke their chains.
That and the systematic replacement of middle management by AI with no regard to human feelings, needs, emotion whatsoever. Pretty much what Amazon is doing to its delivery drivers already.
AI has the potential to improve efficiency. That includes the potential to make all forms of evil more efficient.
That and the systematic replacement of middle management by AI with no regard to human feelings, needs, emotion whatsoever.
So, you’re say that, in general, it’s an improvement? /s
This is not AI. You don’t need AI to create a system that does this. All you need to do is link together some customer data with pricing data.
But I don’t blame you for falling for the scam. People are getting rich by pretending that AI is much more capable than it actually is. In reality, what do we have? We have systems that can generate text that sounds fairly natural but has lots of errors in it. We have systems that can generate pictures that look okay. That’s about it. That’s what AI has given us in the past 2 years. All of the other stuff, all of the formulas and databases and spreadsheets, that’s been around for decades.
Taken too literally to this post in a vacuum, yes. Taken with the news that Kroger was thinking about dynamic pricing, don’t delude yourself into thinking LLMs are the extent of what the “AI” (stupid term but let’s discuss ideas and not the words) goals are. The real ultimate goal is to be able to mine the near infinite amount of consumer data available and turn that into increased profits. Dynamic pricing will be a piece of it and I believe this cartoon illustrates a piece of a complex subject in an easy to digest manner.
You and I both agree that LLMs aren’t shit except for a narrow window of usefulness, mainly a distraction, and the data shows consumers don’t really like “AI”. So why is there still so much cash in “AI”? Maybe you think it’s a market pump, but there is cash in nvda because it’s undeniable GPUs will continue to be utilized in huge numbers for server farms crunching associations. There is cash in the LLM gatekeepers because those firms are large enough and far enough along the path to eventually do what filthy capitalists want with this data. First it was algorithms that prioritized engagement at any cost. Today it is LLMs. And tomorrow it is machine learning on your data and subconscious psychology in order to extract maximum profit possible from you. They’ve milked data-based advertising to the point of diminishing returns and the next step is to exploit us all using the data most make freely available out of convenience so that line continue to go up. I sure hope I’m wrong, but I’m a filthy fucking capitalist and don’t think that’s the case.
Hope to fuck we instill decent judges across this country in the coming years because honestly our best hope is to outlaw most of these practices by showing that they can’t be free of unintended bias and are therefore inherently not objective enough to be used to set prices, etc. it works in a physical store but how do you prevent dynamic pricing online? Especially with an internet that looks like it will become extremely segmented
Bro this isn’t AI this is a fucking basic sorting table. I hate how fucking every computer science is “AI” now.
The only novel aspect might be trying to run facial recognition on you, which still isnt AI.
You’re thinking about ‘general AI’
Just plain old AI includes the ability to analyze data and make recommendations which this is. Therefore this falls under the broad definition of AI.
I would walk up to a homeless person and invite them to shop together. They can get some for themselves, and I can pay them while saving money
What the hell is wrong with these people. How the fuck isn’t this illegal and punishable by life imprisonment?
Because nobody has actually done this yet, this is just a question some senators asked in a hearing. It’s a weird question, but the answer doesn’t necessarily seem to be “no”.
I think it’s more of a “You have never bought this brand, so it’s going to be 50% off today because we want you to consume as much as possible and keep coming back”, not “You’re a gamer, so the Mtn Dew Game Fuel costs 50% more today”, or “You’re rich, so everything costs 3x as much”.
Companies already do this with their apps, issuing coupons to try to expose certain customers to more products. Dynamic pricing just seems like a less transparent and ultimately worse way to do it. It essentially kills couponing as an art form, and I am quite good at shaving 40-60% off of a grocery bill.
If this model succeeds, I worry about what it will evolve into.
Security cameras feed goes through an AI model to classify customers into wealth bands based on appearance, and continually updates the e-ink price labels nearest each customer accordingly.
It’s perfect. This is the market segmentation dream. Segment the market without having to spend the resources to create different versions of the product for each segment. Just change the price per segment! 🥰
Nah, they will lobby to no longer have price tags, so that it will just appear at the cash with arbitrary numbers.
The Checkbook Strikes Back
“I was stuck waiting at checkout for another geriatric millennial to ask the price for every. single. item! As if they can’t afford it, despite all evidence to the contrary. Of fucking course they didn’t have Zelle. And then they left half of it at the register, in everyone’s way!”
If this were the case, all the smart shoppers would go to the store wearing dirty rags.
