[barrell]

If you run out of 50% coupons to your local pizza joint, did they double their prices? Does every company double or triple their prices after Black Friday?

There’s a pretty significant difference between saying someone tripled their prices, and a temporary promotion ended. It’s even more so the case if someone is using it as an example for raising prices as a trend.

I’m 100% in the camp that prices are going up and quality is going down; companies are retiring models and requiring you to use more expensive ones. This has happened to me and there are dozens of examples that one can point to.

But a promotion ending is a strawman argument and does the point a disservice.

[breezybottom]

Essentially yes. Perpetual "discounts" are common in some industries, like fast fashion, so you could consider that the normal price.

[wraptile]

> If you run out of 50% coupons to your local pizza joint, did they double their prices?

Yes. Did they double their msrp? no. They did double their effective price relative to me which is all that matters unless you're doing economic math or something.

[barrell]

The original comment was used as proof of a trend that vendors are raising prices. Would running out of coupons indicate a trend in rising pizza prices?

[wraptile]

It depends whether it's me personally who's running out of coupons or the entire supply of coupons is being reduced. If my ability to get the product for the same price is diminished then the price is being effectively raised.

In this case I'd agree that pricing is effectively raised as 10$ > 10$ - 50%, there's no need to complicate it. However this is not even the right metric for this problem, a better one would be total spent / work produced. If all customers spend more money for the same amount of work (adjusted to progress) then clearly the price is increasing. This would be true in this example as well.