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I don't think banning personalized pricing is very practical to enforce.
That being said, I don't really want society to move in the direction of greater complexity. I'd be pretty happy if things had one sticker price, not dependent on anything, and I could just choose to take the price or not.
Complexity, in general, is pretty regressive, tending to hurt the poor in favor of the already rich.
The situation is still that you see one price and choose to take it or leave it (except that some people will undoubtedly figure out how to access the lower prices).
I think the classical expectation here would be that poor people would keep paying low prices and rich people would see the higher prices, to the extent that willingness to pay corresponds to budgets.
What I’m thinking about is the possibility that some products that are protected from competition by IP monopolies may mostly change in the direction of lower prices to poor/cheap consumers.
Obviously the benefits will mostly accrue to the wealthy by swapping consumer surpluses for producer surpluses.
I think the classical expectation here would be that poor people would keep paying low prices and rich people would see the higher prices, to the extent that willingness to pay corresponds to budgets.
Right but I think part of my point is that the classical expectation might not be accurate. There are plenty of products where the poor end up subsidizing the rich for whatever reason, like credit cards. It's not obvious to me that poor peoples' demand curves (for the things they actually buy) are more elastic than the rich, as they may have less time or ability to shop around for the best deals or otherwise optimize their way around the system
part of my point is that the classical expectation might not be accurate.
That’s also part of my point.
It's not obvious to me that poor peoples' demand curves (for the things they actually buy) are more elastic than the rich
Yeah, there could be some interesting Giffin type dynamics, too, in cases where poor people are budget constrained into buying particular goods.
There’s nothing wrong with personalized pricing. It’s not even that different than the current situation.
What typically happens now is business identify which demographic group makes up their customer base and price to them. The difference is that regular buyers get completely priced out because they aren’t willing to pay what the target demo is.