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As a consumer (even a corporate or government consumer), you have to watch out for this in a capitalist system. My ex's family asked me to take my son to this specific water park this weekend. When I went to buy the tickets this morning, it was going to be $250 to go to the swimming pool! I live in Austin, TX and we have the coolest pool in the world and it's $5 ($8 or something like that if I take my son).

Businesses will try and trick people into thinking $250 is an acceptable price to charge to visit a swimming pool. They'll do the same shit with firetrucks if nobody is paying attention.

Excellent article, and great to see someone pointing this out. Prices will climb out of control if people are suckers and believe the lie of "you get what you pay for." It's more like businesses will keep ratcheting up prices indefinitely as long as there are suckers around who are easily parted with their money.

Extended rant... my ex once wanted to pay $500 for a f*cking vacuum cleaner. People are stupid. Had we listened to Henry Ford they'd still be making some version of the Model T and you could buy a new car for $6,008.85 (inflation adjusted price of a Model T).

discuss

markrages|7 months ago

Vacuum people have been trying to normalize high prices for a long time... From the old Internet: https://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/kirby/kirby.html

lotsofpulp|7 months ago

> It's more like businesses will keep ratcheting up prices indefinitely as long as there are suckers around who are easily parted with their money.

Who wouldn’t? Aren’t people usually proud of minimizing their work to pay ratio, whether it’s earning more and more to sit at a desk and browse HN or selling a firetruck for a new high price.

stinkbeetle|7 months ago

When it's companies preying on impulse buying, brands, trends, temporary demand spikes like a popular water park on a popular weekend then it's understandable to see people paying more than they "should" have (according to one's own high and mighty objective standards), and perhaps blame "capitalism" or believe there should be some regulation to protect consumers. Sure.

But when it is government bureaucrats spending public money procuring multi million dollar equipment, the problem is more likely to be government corruption or at best incompetence.

coryrc|7 months ago

My $350 Soniclean is way more than 3x better a shitty $100 vacuum from Target. (Also seems better than everything they sell, including for a lot more...)