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A comment on Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style. Parent comment

Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by helmholtz on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @07:06AM (#34802704)
> I saw a billboard for a lottery, it said "estimated lotto jackpot 55 million." See, I did not know that shit was estimated. That would suck if you won and they go, "oh, sorry, we were off by two zeros. We estimate that you are angry!"
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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by jsjohnst on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @07:29AM (#34802906)
> I saw a billboard for a lottery, it said "estimated lotto jackpot 55 million." See, I did not know that shit was estimated.

It’s estimated because they don’t know exactly how many tickets will be sold leading up to the next drawing. I’ve not tracked it, but the times I’ve seen, were under 1-2 percentage points. If it bothers you that they said “estimated $55M” and instead you win $54,333,187.42, is it really that bad?

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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by Nullabillity on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @07:40AM (#34803019)
The correct answer would be to sell it as a $54M jackpot then. Or require the organizers to pay the difference out of pocket.
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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by jsjohnst on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @08:21AM (#34803418)
Is this an attempt at humor?
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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by Nullabillity on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @10:06AM (#34804788)
No?

If you don't know the answer, underestimate and overdeliver. Or consider whether you should be doing it in the first place.

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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by oneeyedpigeon on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @10:16AM (#34804901)
The problem is that underestimating will cause fewer tickets to be sold.
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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by Y_Y on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @10:39AM (#34805218)
I can imagine a perverse population of customers whose elasticity function prevents the estimate from ever being correct by always buying too many tickets.
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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by mrguyorama on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @01:08PM (#34808003)
A business being less successful if they don't misrepresent reality is perfectly fine to me.
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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by jsjohnst on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @11:17PM (#34814950)
> A business being less successful if they don't misrepresent reality is perfectly fine to me

We are talking about a state government backed lottery, not a business.

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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by jsjohnst on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @11:22PM (#34814980)
> I did not know that shit was estimated.

> If you don't know the answer, underestimate and overdeliver.

Make up your mind, is estimating bad or not? The example I gave isn’t the only possible outcome, some times it’s 1-2% more than quoted when more tickets were sold.

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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by Nullabillity on Friday February 17, 2023 @09:57AM (#34835360)
Err, what? I never posted that first quote?

And even then, it's perfectly consistent to say that estimating is only OK if it doesn't make you look better than reality.

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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by brookst on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @08:51AM (#34803749)
Or just label it as estimated until tech is developed to determine how many tickets will be sold in advance?
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Re:Shrinkflation, SanDisk Style by helmholtz on Wednesday February 15, 2023 @10:02AM (#34804719)
It was a joke by the inimitable Mitch Hedberg.
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