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> It benefits nobody, because that's the price the transaction would have happened at anyway. But this is not true. Haggling is price discovery. Either way, I

• dahfizz 5y ago
  > Haggling is price discovery Yes, the issue is that the price does not need to be discovered. The seller knows the "real" price, and is just hopping to screw over the buyer.
  • nybble41 5y ago
    > The seller knows the "real" price… The seller knows the customary price, and the lowest price they would be willing to accept. The "real" price is whatever the buyer and seller agree on for a particular trade. Price discovery is an ongoing process which isn't finished just because you've determined an average price for past trades. The buyer isn't losing out unless there's actual fraud involved, even if they could have potentially negotiated a better price. And really, we're mostly talking about trades between individuals and small businesses (who may also be individuals)—why should all the surplus value represented by the difference between the highest and lowest prices acceptable to both parties go to the buyer, and not the seller?
• goodpoint 5y ago
  > Haggling is price discovery True, but the discovery is made necessary by artificial opacity. It does not benefit society as a whole and that's why shops are legally required to have transparent pricing in most countries.
  • goodpoint 5y ago
    ...furthermore, it's heavily discriminatory.