4 ms·

Pricing needs to be transparent, but the reason for the pricing does not. As long as it’s labeled clearly and accurately you can decide to buy or not. You don’t

Pricing needs to be transparent, but the reason for the pricing does not. As long as it’s labeled clearly and accurately you can decide to buy or not. You don’t get to tell Walmart they have to give a breakdown of everything that went into a pricing decision.

acdha 2y ago
Those situations aren’t the same: Walmart charges everyone the same price and they advertise those prices so they’re stable over some time. Uber has multiple sources of dynamic behavior and so I think it’s reasonable to demand visibility, similar to how an airplane fare breaks down the portions which are demand based from the things which are static.
- brookst 2y ago
  > Walmart charges everyone the same price This... isn't true. The same item at a Walmart near San Francisco will have a different price than in nowhere, Kansas. But the person I was responding to was saying that the reasons for a price need to be transparent, which I think is orthogonal to whether a company has universal same-price-for-everyone guarantees. And most companies do not charge the same thing to everyone, even within a market. Think about AAA and senior discounts, loyalty programs, etc.
  - acdha 2y ago
    It’s true in a market for Walmart but not Uber, and the same is true for everything else you mentioned – senior discounts don’t vary per-person. I think that’s a fundamental difference since private per-customer pricing opens up the possibility for the kind of abuses which Uber has been accused of repeatedly.
arp242 2y ago
> You don’t get to tell Walmart they have to give a breakdown of everything that went into a pricing decision. If Walmart would have a custom price for everyone that walks in based on how much Walmart thinks they can afford, then yes: absolutely there should be more transparency.

4 ms·

Pricing needs to be transparent, but the reason for the pricing does not. As long as it’s labeled clearly and accurately you can decide to buy or not. You don’t

by brookst 2y ago

acdha 2y ago
Those situations aren’t the same: Walmart charges everyone the same price and they advertise those prices so they’re stable over some time. Uber has multiple sources of dynamic behavior and so I think it’s reasonable to demand visibility, similar to how an airplane fare breaks down the portions which are demand based from the things which are static.
- brookst 2y ago
  > Walmart charges everyone the same price This... isn't true. The same item at a Walmart near San Francisco will have a different price than in nowhere, Kansas. But the person I was responding to was saying that the reasons for a price need to be transparent, which I think is orthogonal to whether a company has universal same-price-for-everyone guarantees. And most companies do not charge the same thing to everyone, even within a market. Think about AAA and senior discounts, loyalty programs, etc.
  - acdha 2y ago
    It’s true in a market for Walmart but not Uber, and the same is true for everything else you mentioned – senior discounts don’t vary per-person. I think that’s a fundamental difference since private per-customer pricing opens up the possibility for the kind of abuses which Uber has been accused of repeatedly.
arp242 2y ago
> You don’t get to tell Walmart they have to give a breakdown of everything that went into a pricing decision. If Walmart would have a custom price for everyone that walks in based on how much Walmart thinks they can afford, then yes: absolutely there should be more transparency.