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You're thinking of pricing zones—shoppers in Zone A pay a different price than those in Zone B. This makes sense, for example, if shipping costs are higher in Z

You're thinking of pricing zones—shoppers in Zone A pay a different price than those in Zone B. This makes sense, for example, if shipping costs are higher in Zone B. The bill in question is about per-shopper pricing (e.g, you and I pay different prices in the same store). This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail.

amazingamazing 5mo ago
The article says loyalty programs and https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/HB0895?ys=2026RS https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/H... makes no mention of this store restriction. Just retailer. It’s unclear to me why transportation demand pricing is allowed but not delivery. I expect the outcome of this to be prices raised for everyone and then loyalty discounts per group.
- cogman10 5mo ago
  > It’s unclear to me why transportation demand pricing is allowed but not delivery. I don't think it should be allowed. It's predatory. It allows a company like Uber and Lyft to see things like "Oh, you are going to a hospital, then I'm going to apply a 10% surcharge because you are probably desperate". It also works against the drivers. Uber/Lyft see things like "This person is logged on for 8 hours, they are desperate, so let's give them lower rates and worse routes."
  - alex43578 5mo ago
    Why shouldn’t a company be allowed to price the product differently? For an airline, booking a flight 6 months out, 6 days out, or 6 hours out are different situations. For Uber/Lyft, booking a ride into the middle of nowhere carries a cost for the driver that isn’t present when booking a ride to the airport. A flat fee per mile doesn’t make sense. A flat fee per seat doesn’t make sense. Grocery stores already price segment via coupons, sales, and loyalty programs - this is just an extension of that.
    - 9dev 5mo ago
      That's one thing, but charging two people for the same route differently is what the parent comment was getting at, and I agree with them.
      - afc 5mo ago
        You're literally saying "an airline, booking a flight 6 months out, 6 days out, or 6 hours out" is not "charging two people for the same route differently", completely missing the point of alex43578's excellent question.
        9dev 5mo ago
        I'm not. alex43578 was shifting the goalposts from the point cogman10 was making; I acknowledged what he said, but it was besides the point. An airline charging differently depending on the time ahead of flight is sensible. An airline charging differently depending on the buyer's home address is discrimination.
        alex43578 5mo ago
        You said "charging two people for the same route differently" is bad: airlines do that constantly and that's why there's dozens of fare changes, fare buckets, sales, codeshares, etc. Regardless, the bigger point is that businesses already have a ton of levers to move for pricing: sales, loyalty programs, and regular price adjustments. None of those are considered discrimination. Why does the buyer's home address fall into this protected class; particularly for any service that involves transport, delivery, etc to that address? There's a clear relevancy of the address to the cost of a service based around that location.
        9dev 5mo ago
        I suppose you are misunderstanding me on purpose, but let me try again in very clear terms anyway: Offering the same service or product (a specific flight if you will, a chunk of butter of the same brand in the same store at the same time) to two independent customers at different prices based on prior knowledge about them unrelated to the specific good or service is fundamentally unjust.
NiloCK 5mo ago
This is possible in retail, or will soon be. Canada's major grocery chain has migrated entirely to LCD price tagging that can receive OTA updates. There are now no paper price labels in the store. The same chains have extensive camera coverage on the entrance / exits of the store. So pricing can be an optimization function as fine grained as persons currently in the store. Cameras on the aisles as well can enforce that individual tags update while nobody is within 15 feet, etc. It's hard to even talk or think about without without sounding (and becoming!) conspiratorial. Add a little data from our trusted partners and they can jack specific prices according to urgency - eg, floral bouquets when you're en route to a dance recital.
- clintonb 5mo ago
  The electronic shel labels use e-ink. Their refresh time is around 30 seconds. What happens if two shoppers are looking at the same product?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - NiloCK 5mo ago
    From my comment: > Cameras on the aisles as well can enforce that individual tags update while nobody is within 15 feet, etc.
- Paradigma11 5mo ago
  Since you get a location and time stamped receipt these shenanigans would be completely trivial to detect.
- Gigachad 5mo ago
  It’s hard to talk about without sounding conspiratorial because it literally is an unfounded conspiracy. The impracticalities of this scheme are immediately obvious and no evidence of it ever actually being implemented in physical retail exists.
  - 5mo ago
cogman10 5mo ago
> This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail. It is possible for retail. For example, you can simply not display the price. You can display a price range. You can use EInk displays which auto-update based on who's approaching the item. And of course it's infinitely possible in an online store. One example of how this is being employed is McDonalds trying to push everyone to use the app. They'll give lower prices in app while raising prices on the menu giving a "not using app" tax. That enables them to have flexible per user prices within the app. A store could do the same thing.
- grogenaut 5mo ago
  part of the reason I don't go there anymore. I noticed recently taco bell in my area no longer asks about their app, just takes my order.
- Manuel_D 5mo ago
  How would that work? The barcode on the item doesn't get rewritten, the checkout counter can't distinguish who picked up which exact item. Even if they did assign unique barcodes to each item, what happens if you take the item off the shelf, and put it in someone else's cart? They'd be charged the wrong price for the item.
  - rootlocus 5mo ago
    The store could make it mandatory to swipe your fidelity care before calculating your prices. They already do something similar with specialized promotions.
    - Manuel_D 5mo ago
      If we're including promotions or membership discounts, then coupons fit this definition of price discrimination. And those have existed since the 90s at least.
      - Dylan16807 5mo ago
DocTomoe 5mo ago
Just for clarification: Does this affect intraday price changes, and how much if this is AI vs. 'standard database operations'? I'm thinking of scenarios such as 'Oh, we're going to have a heatwave between 14:00 and 19:00, let's make popsicles 9 cent more expensive for everyone' or 'hm, that particular brand of soda sells extremely good today, let's hike the price'/'this noodle soup gets new stock later today, let's lower the price to clear out the shelf' Because with electronic signage, that is very possible.
- irishcoffee 5mo ago
  It’s interesting, no matter what the sign says, the cost is determined at the checkout. I think you missed the point. This is about profiling people buying through apps. I guess it’s neat someone is trying to do something about grocery prices, this won’t move the needle. Still nice to have in the books. Now if only the governer could figure out how to get the Key bridge built instead of firing the company and starting over… that would be cool. “Yeah it’ll be built by 2028!” At this point I doubt it’ll be finished in my lifetime.
  - derektank 5mo ago
    If you look at the actual text of the bill, it’s much more expansive than simply profiling people. It defines dynamic pricing as, “THE PRACTICE OF VARYING THE PRICES OF CONSUMER GOODS OR SERVICES WITHIN A BUSINESS DAY BASED ON DEMAND OR OTHER FACTORS, INCLUDING THROUGH THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR MODELS THAT RETRAIN OR RECALIBRATE BASED ON RECEIVED INFORMATION IN NEAR REAL–TIME.”[1] This absolutely would ban changing the price in the middle of the day in response to changes in temperature, as the parent comment suggested. [1]https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2026RS/bills/hb/hb0895f.pdf https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2026RS/bills/hb/hb0895f.pdf
- derektank 5mo ago
  Yeah, I think time-based algorithmic pricing is good and helps reduce shortages. As long as everyone can get the same price at the same time, I have no issues with how that price was arrived at. What concerns me is different consumers being offered different prices at the same time.

amazingamazing 5mo ago

The article says loyalty programs and https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/HB0895?ys=2026RS https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/H... makes no mention of this store restriction. Just retailer. It’s unclear to me why transportation demand pricing is allowed but not delivery. I expect the outcome of this to be prices raised for everyone and then loyalty discounts per group.

cogman10 5mo ago
> It’s unclear to me why transportation demand pricing is allowed but not delivery. I don't think it should be allowed. It's predatory. It allows a company like Uber and Lyft to see things like "Oh, you are going to a hospital, then I'm going to apply a 10% surcharge because you are probably desperate". It also works against the drivers. Uber/Lyft see things like "This person is logged on for 8 hours, they are desperate, so let's give them lower rates and worse routes."
- alex43578 5mo ago
  Why shouldn’t a company be allowed to price the product differently? For an airline, booking a flight 6 months out, 6 days out, or 6 hours out are different situations. For Uber/Lyft, booking a ride into the middle of nowhere carries a cost for the driver that isn’t present when booking a ride to the airport. A flat fee per mile doesn’t make sense. A flat fee per seat doesn’t make sense. Grocery stores already price segment via coupons, sales, and loyalty programs - this is just an extension of that.
  - 9dev 5mo ago
    That's one thing, but charging two people for the same route differently is what the parent comment was getting at, and I agree with them.
    - afc 5mo ago
      You're literally saying "an airline, booking a flight 6 months out, 6 days out, or 6 hours out" is not "charging two people for the same route differently", completely missing the point of alex43578's excellent question.
      - 9dev 5mo ago
        I'm not. alex43578 was shifting the goalposts from the point cogman10 was making; I acknowledged what he said, but it was besides the point. An airline charging differently depending on the time ahead of flight is sensible. An airline charging differently depending on the buyer's home address is discrimination.
        alex43578 5mo ago
        You said "charging two people for the same route differently" is bad: airlines do that constantly and that's why there's dozens of fare changes, fare buckets, sales, codeshares, etc. Regardless, the bigger point is that businesses already have a ton of levers to move for pricing: sales, loyalty programs, and regular price adjustments. None of those are considered discrimination. Why does the buyer's home address fall into this protected class; particularly for any service that involves transport, delivery, etc to that address? There's a clear relevancy of the address to the cost of a service based around that location.
        9dev 5mo ago
        I suppose you are misunderstanding me on purpose, but let me try again in very clear terms anyway: Offering the same service or product (a specific flight if you will, a chunk of butter of the same brand in the same store at the same time) to two independent customers at different prices based on prior knowledge about them unrelated to the specific good or service is fundamentally unjust.

NiloCK 5mo ago

This is possible in retail, or will soon be. Canada's major grocery chain has migrated entirely to LCD price tagging that can receive OTA updates. There are now no paper price labels in the store. The same chains have extensive camera coverage on the entrance / exits of the store. So pricing can be an optimization function as fine grained as persons currently in the store. Cameras on the aisles as well can enforce that individual tags update while nobody is within 15 feet, etc. It's hard to even talk or think about without without sounding (and becoming!) conspiratorial. Add a little data from our trusted partners and they can jack specific prices according to urgency - eg, floral bouquets when you're en route to a dance recital.

clintonb 5mo ago
The electronic shel labels use e-ink. Their refresh time is around 30 seconds. What happens if two shoppers are looking at the same product?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- NiloCK 5mo ago
  From my comment: > Cameras on the aisles as well can enforce that individual tags update while nobody is within 15 feet, etc.
Paradigma11 5mo ago
Since you get a location and time stamped receipt these shenanigans would be completely trivial to detect.
Gigachad 5mo ago
It’s hard to talk about without sounding conspiratorial because it literally is an unfounded conspiracy. The impracticalities of this scheme are immediately obvious and no evidence of it ever actually being implemented in physical retail exists.
- 5mo ago

cogman10 5mo ago

> This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail. It is possible for retail. For example, you can simply not display the price. You can display a price range. You can use EInk displays which auto-update based on who's approaching the item. And of course it's infinitely possible in an online store. One example of how this is being employed is McDonalds trying to push everyone to use the app. They'll give lower prices in app while raising prices on the menu giving a "not using app" tax. That enables them to have flexible per user prices within the app. A store could do the same thing.

grogenaut 5mo ago
part of the reason I don't go there anymore. I noticed recently taco bell in my area no longer asks about their app, just takes my order.
Manuel_D 5mo ago
How would that work? The barcode on the item doesn't get rewritten, the checkout counter can't distinguish who picked up which exact item. Even if they did assign unique barcodes to each item, what happens if you take the item off the shelf, and put it in someone else's cart? They'd be charged the wrong price for the item.
- rootlocus 5mo ago
  The store could make it mandatory to swipe your fidelity care before calculating your prices. They already do something similar with specialized promotions.
  - Manuel_D 5mo ago
    If we're including promotions or membership discounts, then coupons fit this definition of price discrimination. And those have existed since the 90s at least.
    - Dylan16807 5mo ago

DocTomoe 5mo ago

Just for clarification: Does this affect intraday price changes, and how much if this is AI vs. 'standard database operations'? I'm thinking of scenarios such as 'Oh, we're going to have a heatwave between 14:00 and 19:00, let's make popsicles 9 cent more expensive for everyone' or 'hm, that particular brand of soda sells extremely good today, let's hike the price'/'this noodle soup gets new stock later today, let's lower the price to clear out the shelf' Because with electronic signage, that is very possible.

irishcoffee 5mo ago
It’s interesting, no matter what the sign says, the cost is determined at the checkout. I think you missed the point. This is about profiling people buying through apps. I guess it’s neat someone is trying to do something about grocery prices, this won’t move the needle. Still nice to have in the books. Now if only the governer could figure out how to get the Key bridge built instead of firing the company and starting over… that would be cool. “Yeah it’ll be built by 2028!” At this point I doubt it’ll be finished in my lifetime.
- derektank 5mo ago
  If you look at the actual text of the bill, it’s much more expansive than simply profiling people. It defines dynamic pricing as, “THE PRACTICE OF VARYING THE PRICES OF CONSUMER GOODS OR SERVICES WITHIN A BUSINESS DAY BASED ON DEMAND OR OTHER FACTORS, INCLUDING THROUGH THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR MODELS THAT RETRAIN OR RECALIBRATE BASED ON RECEIVED INFORMATION IN NEAR REAL–TIME.”[1] This absolutely would ban changing the price in the middle of the day in response to changes in temperature, as the parent comment suggested. [1]https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2026RS/bills/hb/hb0895f.pdf https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2026RS/bills/hb/hb0895f.pdf
derektank 5mo ago
Yeah, I think time-based algorithmic pricing is good and helps reduce shortages. As long as everyone can get the same price at the same time, I have no issues with how that price was arrived at. What concerns me is different consumers being offered different prices at the same time.