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Student pricing at the cinema is disanalogous to the way price discrimination is done on the internet. In the former case, the fact that students (and children
by rosser 12y ago
Student pricing at the cinema is disanalogous to the way price discrimination is done on the internet. In the former case, the fact that students (and children and seniors and, and, and) pay a different price than others is clearly disclosed to everyone. Online, it's not.
- altern8 12y ago...and it makes sense. Also, IMHO the thing isn't about people with PCs paying less, but people using Macs getting charged more.
- lorddoig 12y agoThe only way transparency affects the optimality of a price discriminating system is possibly by screwing the whole thing up by creating resentment. This doesn't happen so much for cinema tickets as children/students/OAPs are more (almost universal) stages of life that we can all relate to as opposed to groups based on some trait. No matter how pissed off people get about finding out that they paid more than someone else, it has absolutely no bearing on the mathematics which shows this to be the optimal (for both producers and consumers) way to allocate scarce resources.
- icelancer 12y agoFor a single-shot game, perhaps. But in iterative games, not even close. Expected value is a far more complex calculation than that.
- lorddoig 12y agoGame theory doesn't come into the optimality of this. Sure you could write out a single sale as a game between producer and consumer, but it's a long way around to get the same numbers out. An iterative game to buy something - what would that be? Extended bartering? I already explained that. I don't understand where expected value comes into it, it's not that kind of analysis.
- wodenokoto 12y agoActually it is not. Many places have student discount but don't advertise it. You have to ask.