[drillsteps5]

I heard that "surge pricing" , or "surveillance pricing", is wrong, but don't understand why. Shouldn't the service provider be free to charge whatever they want for the service they provide? And the consumer should be free to choose between multiple service providers to find the optimal value (price/convenience/features/whatever)?

In other words, the root issue is not "surveillance pricing" but lack of competition.

[Doxin]

Increasing prices at busy times (i.e. surge pricing) is... to some degree defensible. Spying on people and charging different prices to different people for the same thing (i.e. surveillance pricing) is not. Can you imagine the mayhem if companies just straight up knew salary information for all of their customers?

[drillsteps5]

>Spying on people and charging different prices to different people for the same thing (i.e. surveillance pricing) is not.

They are not "spying", they are _legally_ using various data _legally_ collected on their current and prospective customers to set the pricing. Do you ever read T&C of any online services you're using? So how is this illegal?

>Can you imagine the mayhem if companies just straight up knew salary information for all of their customers?

I filled in FAFSA and CSS Profile for multiple colleges my child applied for last year. So yes, that's exactly how some industries work. Sucks for me, the customer. Not illegal.

[Doxin]

Work on your reading comprehension. I never said anything was illegal. Spying means the act of keeping a secret watch for intelligence purposes. This is what they are doing. And just because it's legal does not mean it isn't wrong.