3 ms·
> so they can gouge you $5/gallon and you have no choice to pay it You can, of course, buy only the minimum you need to make it to another station instead. Fu
by T-hawk 8y ago
> so they can gouge you $5/gallon and you have no choice to pay it
You can, of course, buy only the minimum you need to make it to another station instead.
Fundamentally, what's happening here is a temporary very localized monopoly, that you created by letting your fuel supply get so low. If you put yourself in a situation where you can reach only one fuel supplier, the economic consequences are your own fault.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoIf you can only reach one supplier, then why would they bother to pay to advertise to you? They're the only option. EDIT to clarify: I'm not trying to argue here, I sincerely don't understand how this is supposed to work.
- T-hawk 8y agoThe supplier would pay the intermediary (the operator of the tracking system) for the information that you can only reach one supplier. They pay to learn that the temporary localized monopoly exists.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gpm 8y agoIt's only an abusable temporary localized monopoly if the fuel supplier is spying on me so they are aware of that fact. The solution shouldn't be to always carry extra fuel around. That has various negative consequences: decreasing range, increasing the amount of weight I am moving around. The solution should be not letting them spy on me.
- T-hawk 8y agoThere exists an information asymmetry. You know you can't reach another supplier, but the supplier doesn't know that. The supplier seeks to remedy that asymmetry. I thought HN was usually against information asymmetry in the free market? Or does that only apply when it's not to the consumer's benefit?
- gpm 8y agoRather it only applies when there exists (and will continue to exist after the information is shared) a competitive market. All the arguments for a free market and information symmetry rely on the assumption of competition.
- taneq 8y ago"Remedy" is a loaded term. The supplier seeks to gain information in order to gain an advantage in the transaction.
- expertentipp 8y agoThis is some extreme free-market populism. Granular detection and exploition of "temporary localized monopolies" possible thanks to invasive tracking and profiling will make people go bankrupt, get hurt, or die, will make the society as a whole more miserable. Victim of such manipulation is in no fault. BTW 5USD/gallon would be actually cheap in Europe.