> A pernicious aspect of drip pricing is that, as it becomes more common, businesses that do not do it will feel pressure to follow suit; The honest restaurant

> A pernicious aspect of drip pricing is that, as it becomes more common, businesses that do not do it will feel pressure to follow suit; The honest restaurant is at a distinct competitive disadvantage despite providing a superior customer experience. This article reminds me of 'Meditations on Moloch' https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ The multi-agent trap. In some competition optimizing for X, the opportunity arises to throw some other value under the bus for improved X. Those who take it prosper. Those who don’t take it die out. Eventually, everyone’s relative status is about the same as before, but everyone’s absolute status is worse than before. The process continues until all other values that can be traded off have been, but relative X is still the same. There’s a passage in the Principia Discordia where Malaclypse complains to the Goddess about the evils of human society. “Everyone is hurting each other, the planet is rampant with injustices, whole societies plunder groups of their own people, mothers imprison sons, children perish while brothers war.” The Goddess answers: “What is the matter with that, if it’s what you want to do?” Malaclypse: “But nobody wants it! Everybody hates it!” Goddess: “Oh. Well, then stop.” Malaclypse: “But we can't, because everyone else is doing it!”