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Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by Macha on Sunday October 22, 2017 @07:11AM (#15526206)
I wonder how sustainable some of these approaches are and how often people will just stop buying from places that prey on them too much. For example, I'll often end up paying more for e.g. flights if it's not too costly and it removes the hassle of comparing days/large numbers of airlines to save 50 bucks. But if they started charging me double what others were paying, I'd just stop using that airline.

Likewise, I've noticed a similar behaviour with ads on youtube. If you always click the skip ad button, you'll always get the 15s unskippable ads, or 30s ads. But when I stopped for a while (because a lot of the channels I watch are solely supported by them), YouTube kept pushing the line until it was showing 5 minute ads for 10 minute videos. So now I skip them again to avoid the gradual creeping increase in ad length.

Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by averagewall on Sunday October 22, 2017 @09:09AM (#15526639)
I now buy flights direct from airlines because of the dirty tricks of resellers. They've been terrible at sorting out missed connections (please get a paper document in person from the middle-of-nowhere stopover airport to prove it was their fault, and not going to refund legs on a 2nd airline at all) and do dirty tricks like not actually booking your ticket when you pay but waiting till they expect to get it for a lower price, which might mean not getting it at all. I know airlines overbook too but it's one less reason for an already stressful trip to go wrong.

Custom pricing feels like buying from a shopkeeper with no price stickers. You expect to get charged according to what he judges you can afford. It removes the value of being able to rely on all the other customers to collectively decide if the price is fair or not. That means every customer has to individually evaluate every price which is a massive waste of effort.

Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by username223 on Sunday October 22, 2017 @10:24AM (#15526955)
> Custom pricing feels like buying from a shopkeeper with no price stickers.

This is one of the best things about living in the developed world: most things are bought without haggling. All of your most stressful and miserable transactions -- buying a car, booking a flight, tipping a server -- lack a fixed, public price. Dynamic pricing based on digital surveillance is a huge step backward.

Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by fjsolwmv on Sunday October 22, 2017 @11:59AM (#15527381)
It's funny that you think the airlines don't do dirty tricks.

What reseller doesn't buy tickets when you book? They get paid when you buy, why would they refuse to buy?

Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by mijamo on Monday October 23, 2017 @03:20AM (#15531334)
As said, they want to buy when the price is the cheapest. Sometimes if you book a long time in advancr (eg 6 months) they will wait a few months before buying the ticket because their statistics say the ticket is cheapest 2 months before the flight. Occasionally it can mean they don't manage to book before the flight is full. Not all companies do that though, but many of the cheapest/shadiest do.
Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by jstanley on Sunday October 22, 2017 @08:49AM (#15526572)
I refuse to participate in YouTube's opaque ad selection system. If the video has an ad, even if it's skippable after 5s, I don't watch the video.

I very rarely get shown ads.

Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by Spivak on Sunday October 22, 2017 @09:25AM (#15526712)
Why not get an ad blocker? Good for attention, privacy, and security.
Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by jstanley on Sunday October 22, 2017 @09:28AM (#15526726)
I do on my computer, but I watch a lot of YouTube on my phone.

I ran AdBlock Plus for a while until I discovered that it runs as an open proxy, allowing anyone on the same wifi network as you to fetch content through your phone.

In combination with a VPN client that routes everything over the VPN, I considered that an unacceptable risk.

Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by Spivak on Sunday October 22, 2017 @09:31AM (#15526739)
Firefox for Android has extension supprort and in particular uBlock origin support. Same as your desktop browser.
Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by muxator on Sunday October 22, 2017 @06:18PM (#15529302)
Could you elaborate on the "open proxy" part? I now switched to unlock, but still miss adblock plus interface. This could help me not switching back
Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by fjsolwmv on Sunday October 22, 2017 @11:57AM (#15527348)
How about paying for Youtube Red?
Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by detaro on Sunday October 22, 2017 @12:32PM (#15527562)
Not available on my continent. Always wondered why they didn't roll that out further.
Re:How Retailers Use Personalized Prices by fjsolwmv on Sunday October 22, 2017 @11:59AM (#15527367)
That's not true. Unskippable ads appear on very popular content with wealthy advertisers. It's obvious when you see something like every single SNL video showing the same nonskippable ad for the same new movie release.