[bit1993]

This is like responding to symptoms and not addressing the root cause. This is something that should be fixed by supply and demand, buyers should have a choice where to buy and sellers should have a choice how to price their products.

These problems arise when dealing with a monopoly, that undermines the free market and that's a far worse systemic problem and the root cause of these issues. AI has nothing to do with it.

[cowanon77]

There is an imbalance in leverage and timing though. Dynamic pricing requires a lot of real time and historical data; companies can access and share that information easily, and you as a consumer cannot.

Even in areas with multiple competitors, they can (and do) effectively collude by getting their information through data brokers and third parties.

I don't have a solution, but we are currently very far away from a free market in general.

[Gibbon1]

When I was at that tender age when many nerdy boys read and fall to Atlas Shrugged I read The Pearl by Steinbeck. Which has a passage I never forgot.

“It was supposed that the pearl buyers were individuals acting alone, bidding against one another for the pearls the fishermen brought in. And once it had been so. But this was a wasteful method, for often, in the excitement of bidding for a fine pearl, too great a price had been paid to the fisherman. This was extravagant and not to be countenanced. Now there was only one pearl buyer with many hands"

[bko]

Why can companies access and share information more easily than consumers?

I get about a dozen fliers in the mail every week advertising deals that are surely loss leaders for the grocer. Then there's extreme couponing forums.

Have you worked in a large organization? I can't imagine it's easy to coordinate much less have someone make actual decisions.

[bit1993]

When the government actively decides the price of goods and services, it becomes more and more like communism. The government should instead uphold the free market and proactively prevent collusion and monopolies that threaten the free market, this is harder to do in the US because of lobbying though.

[intended]

Slogans and bromides are good starting points but not solutions.

The government IS preventing coordinated price setting by closing the loophole of third party data brokers.

[Dylan16807]

> When the government actively decides the price of goods and services

Ok.

Can we get to what this kind of law is actually doing? The simplest version would be roughly "stores need to display prices and only change them once per day". No specific prices are being imposed.

[bko]

There is no monopoly. Grocers are incredibly competitive and have low single digit margins (~1-3%)

There are things you can do to lower prices like prosecuting theft. In this case technology is part of the solution. Adding red tape and restricting technology will do the opposite.