Re:United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on be...
by llukas on Thursday November 12, 2026 @01:26AM
(#50463733)
How do you haggle with algorithm that is being fed on aggregated data of who you are, how much do you make and what you did yesterday?
It is nowhere close to example you gave.
Re:United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on be...
by account42 on Thursday November 12, 2026 @04:13AM
(#50464833)
Exactly. Haggling makes sense when the two parties hav similar levels of information and agency. For entirely one sided transactions where one party has all the power such arbitrage only benefits the powerful party and it is very reasonable for us to come together and decide to make that illegal.
Re:United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on be...
by estearum on Thursday November 12, 2026 @05:17AM
(#50465285)
That's not true.
There are many conditions under which price variation allows the seller to maximize the overall amount of services/products that it sells to the largest number of people, all of whom feel like they're getting a good deal.
Should a loaf of bread cost the same thing in Malaysia as it does in the US? No. And if you required it to be such, then people in Malaysia simply wouldn't have bread, and people in the US would likely have higher prices because cutting off less-wealthy markets would reduce the economies of scale that drive overall prices.
Negotiating a price is as old as humans. "That merchant over there is charging 10% less. Can you beat that?", "I want to buy 10 of these, can you give me a bulk discount?"
I have friends that haggle at local stores. One goes does the "Store X is cheaper thing". Another does "My parents live in Oregon where they're is no sales tax, can you lower your price to cover the difference? Otherwise I'll just have them bring it down from Oregon", etc....