This is like the ultimate version of going back 1000+ years economically and socially. Where a merchant would size up how desperate or rich they thought you were and charged you based on that rather than a reasonable price.
It wastes the time of the poor whom must be willing to walk away without anything when they can "afford it" and further deepens the problems when you are desperate.
Except now they can also spy on you 24x7 and buy information from other spys while they make their decisions and have 100% information asymmetry. Now they also HAVE to charge you more to make back the money they spend spying on you rather than just running a normal business.
You already answered your own question though. It is the peak of exploiting power wealth disparity, there is zero chance of it being used beneficially.
On some level though it does jive with "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Do you have an issue with textbooks being cheaper in India?
If we live in a more socialist future where there are mechanisms to prevent corporate greed from accelerating wealth inequality, I feel like it could find a beneficial equilibrium. I think, given the choice, most [non-luxury] businesses would rather have more customers than price out poor people entirely. They would be subsidized.
Put another way, do "one price for everyone" and "customer blindness" benefit rich people or poor people more?
>Put another way, do "one price for everyone" and "customer blindness" benefit rich people or poor people more?
I would say "one price for everyone" has indisputably been proven to benefit the poor more. This is just based on the last 100 or so years of the average persons live quality being raised by astronomical amounts because of the paradigm of customer blindness. Fixed prices are a very recent thing and if you look around it worked out pretty well. This new pricing is 100% predatory. backwards.
> This is just based on the last 100 or so years of the average persons live quality being raised by astronomical amounts because of the paradigm of customer blindness.
If you can point me in the direction of any sources of data or research that demonstrate this specific causation I would be interested to learn more.
This article finds that "tailoring price according to willingness to pay is theoretically sound but culturally still questionable."
I think it's important to separate discussion of the abstract concept from a particular implementation (though both are relevant). "It is important that such segmentation be fair, however, if you want your customers to accept variable pricing."
It seems distasteful on the surface of course but could it be macroeconomically a good thing?
Obviously the fatal flaw is that capitalists are running it for their own gain but logically how would it play out?