The rent is too damn algorithmic — DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb is investigating RealPage, a company that helps landlords set rent prices, for potential antitrust violations::Attorney General Brian Schwalb is investigating RealPage, a company that helps landlords set rent prices, for potential antitrust violations.
While they’re at it, investigate the use of digital price tags on store shelves, especially grocery stores
I would much rather have to deal with digital tags then stupid paper based ones. If they were done properly it should just be a simple “update price” and it sets to both. With paper tags you have employees that don’t update all locations so you get discrepancies.
I think the worry is that they can change the prices dynamically based on who is in the area.
That… seems like a silly concern? At best I think you could pull off tricks based on specific timeslots of the day/week (e.g.: lunch rush, weekends, business hours) and most of that was already realistically feasible through bossing around normal humans – no tech required.
Maybe I’m off-base, but it seems to me like the following things would severely hamper the efforts of anyone attempting to do this at scale:
- Exploding the complexity and error surface across all price-setting procedures
- Micromanaging, per location, when/how prices change to compensate for locality-specific stuff like daylight hours and foot traffic
- Avoiding the very legally dubious scenario of prices autochanging in the time gap between taking an item off the shelf and paying at the register
All of that effort in exchange for what? A few extra quarters on the margin if you do it right but losing a few dimes on the margin (or a class action suit) otherwise? I can already see middle-manager heads exploding in contrition. It might happen someday once active AI store management finally oozes into place… but until that day comes I think shoppers can feel safe knowing that they are merely getting gouged in the same old fashion as their forebearers.
“that guy looks loaded, pop the prices, quick”
that’s gonna been with paper-based as well but yeah I can totally see it happening
Uh not instantly. Not storewide in a moment. Make it networked and you can change prices per customer as they walk each aisle.
And that’s my point. The digital tags are already being setup that they can adjust within under a minute. People get off work at 4-5pm, better jack up prices for the next few hours!
A bunch of people buying bread at a given time, jack up prices!
Recorded a larger number of people entering through the front turnstile. Yup, pump up those prices!
And with digital tags they can update at any time, so unless you’ve got a video camera running to price that bread was $3.99 and not $4.99 when you picked it up off the shelf…
?? I don’t think paper was stopping them from adjusting prices as needed.
Is it really antitrust if the algorithm correctly concludes that you can effectively charge infinite money for basic needs like food, shelter, water, healthcare that humans need to survive?
The issue is that it sets the same prices for all its clients, so they all move in tandem. The more clients in one area using it, the stronger the profit for everyone because their prices move in lockstep. It creates the prices via its collision mechanism.
This is the same thing as those parties colluding to all raise their prices in tandem, they have just outsourced the collusion.
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Any kind of algorithm used for type of thing is going to be trying to increase rents. If enough people all use the same algorithm, price fixing is what you’ll get.
It’s not necessarily malicious intent, it’s just the way the software works, which opens the discussion about the role of using algorithms in rent calculations in general.
No it’s definitely maliciosu intent
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