top | item 39519922

(no title)

Server6 | 2 years ago

Isn't that what they're trying to do though? Perfectly price their product for demand at any given time? Not saying I like the idea, but it seems like pure supply and demand in action.

discuss

order

cameldrv|2 years ago

Yeah but it's more like the prisoner's dilemma vs. the iterated prisoner's dilemma. Some people think that what makes the modern world work is hyper-optimization, but what really makes the modern world work is reliability. If my counterparty, the hamburger stand, is trying to hyper-optimize their profit by doing dynamic pricing, now I have to run my own optimization loop to find the best value hamburger stand for that particular hour, and maybe I don't want to waste my time/energy trying to figure out what the best hamburger stand is at any given moment, so I just go to the one that charges the same prices all the time.

meowfly|2 years ago

Wendy's doing this almost seems predatory. They know people will show up and not pay attention to the prices.

I do, however, like the idea of surge pricing for sit-down restaurants. If restaurant prices raised to guarantee available seats (like hotel rooms), there are plenty of instances where I would pay a premium to eat near an event I'm attending.