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They would care of projects like this generated broad awareness and organized revolt from consumers. Companies need adults in the room to keep them from behavi
by happytiger 3y ago
They would care of projects like this generated broad awareness and organized revolt from consumers.
Companies need adults in the room to keep them from behaving badly. This operating under the observation that they behave badly when not being watched, so a thesis to be tested more than an assertion of fact.
At a minimum they arguably behave worse when there are no consequences, hence inflation becoming air cover to raise prices when prices weren’t being raised before as there was no “good reason” for them to go up.
I love this project. “Index data” projects like this seem ripe as a category, especially with AI and Ml systems providing ready observability on changes and trends.
The question is how to get enough conclusions and salient observations that spur people to the social science outrage factor levels so that they take action.
Or perhaps we should just accept that companies will use these technologies to optimize everything against consumers and not deploy them in counterinsurgency resistance-style whitehat fashion.
- junofan 3y agoIs it possible for somebody to open up a shop that buys from German distributors at up to a 40% discount? Then you wouldn’t need a mass outrage movement to solve the problem.
- happytiger 3y agoI would suggest that AI tech will open up more arbitrage opportunities for retailers as their price strategies come under pressure from inexpensive monitoring and reporting. Already I’ve worked on prototypes where shopping lists are fed into the system and the retailer that would give you the lowest price nearby is suggested. Imagine the optimization possibilities where you have shared borders like you’re talking about, or where digital intelligence can be injected to optimize purchase prices among consumers for larger ticket or recurring items. A lot of room for new and better strategies here.