[xboxnolifes]

Sounds less like price gouging and more like price fixing.

[pentaphobe]

Yeah, funny how property markets always seem to have that same response.

I bet most of those same people would lose their minds if their favourite restaurant tried to double prices overnight. "Yeah we sold a lot of burgers yesterday..."

[orangecat]

If a restaurant is so popular that they're often running out of food, it's perfectly reasonable for them to raise their prices.

[pentaphobe]

popularity is irrelevant - the context is day-to-day. Prices change slowly over time of course, but that's different.

If there was less egg available for a given day, McDonald's [^1] don't charge more for a McMuffin, they sell fewer McMuffins

I'd argue AirBnb's approach here is more like Uber's surge rates. Which are clearly more extreme than anything taxi cabs did (bar the occasional bad actor)

[^1]: mcdonalds is stretching the "restaurant" analogy here, but they have a higher consistent turnover so seem like a closer comparison

[hackable_sand]

Not during a famine

[Auracle]

I’d argue that’s a better time to do it? People will eat less, conserving food.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

That’s actually what happened around here, during inflation.

Restaurants are now double what they were, just a couple of years ago; even the cheaper ones.

The prices shot up, and have yet to back down.

[AlotOfReading]

I wonder how much "value" would actually be lost from the market if prices were simply fixed a month or two ahead of time to exclude those price shocks.