For the love of anything holy. Then they’ll require to install a shitty app to shop at the grocery store in the first place. No, thank you
I shop at Jewel (which is currently under threat of being taken over by Kroger) and they’re now doing this thing where there will be, for instance, peaches, under a huge sign showing an incredible deal. Then you look at it and realize that the price isn’t discounted at all unless you install a “Jewel App” and use it to “claim” a “digital coupon.”
Two major supermarkets do this in the UK now. I fucking hate it, it should be illegal. I also noticed recently a store with digital price labels. Combine the two and we’re marching towards the news in the post at a breakneck speed.
Many supermarkets do adjust their prices based on the average income of the location they’re in, so this isn’t really different in some ways.
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I think it’s cute that people think the dynamic pricing is charging the poor less,
If you see someone shoplifting anything from Kroger or one of their subsidiaries, no you didn’t. Now cause a distraction while that shoplifter does the Lord’s work.
Being poor is expensive as hell. Ironically being richer makes things around you cheaper.
Which is why parents need to teach their kids about the realities of life. Modern life, specifically. And prioritize them accordingly.
Amen
If you’re on the billionaire whitelist, you pay even lower than the people in poverty.
Saw an interview with a guy (on Bloomberg actually) who explained that “ability to pay” and “willingness to pay” are two different things and that the pricing system doesn’t target people who have a lot of money (“ability to pay”) but rather people who have fewer options.
Like, if the app knows that you don’t have a car and this is the only grocery store you can walk to, you will pay a higher price.
Ah yes, new horrors await, capitalism functioning normal as always I see.
Then they get mad when people start stealing shit
Demonstrating the inherent contradiction of capitalism in practice.
Capitalism is allegedly the only fair way to price things, via the “Price Mechanism”. However, capitalists have simultaneously been creaming their pants at the idea of charging specific people or people in specific situations more, because they can get more profit, in service of Profit Maximization.
I’m sure I’ll get a lecture on how they are not at all mutually exclusive but I don’t care, honestly. It’s either going to price gouge when the customer is perceived to be in more need (low battery pricing for taxi apps) or have a price based on the customer’s ability to pay… at which point why not socialism?
Essentially, the capitalist will support what is best for themselves and make up reasons why it theoretically might benefit consumers (but not really).
When people talk about the benefits of capitalism, what they’re generally really talking about are the benefits of perfect competition.
The capitalists themselves, of course, absolutely hate perfect competition with the burning wrath of a thousand suns.
I think perfect competition is impossible. The incentive is not to compete fairly, it’s to maximize profits and the most effective ways to maximize profits are anticompetitive, exploitative, or both. Anyone arguing for a society built around such a system is either naive or trying to buy more time with false hopes.
Virtually every condition in the ideal scenario is a barrier for profit, and I don’t think any civilization has managed even a single one of those conditions. There will always be actors looking to take advantage of any loopholes or create unregulated markets.
It’s just not a system that is sustainable. The incentives are simply wrong and the society built around those incentives can’t maintain a system of perfect conditions even if one were to exist.
I am going to go to Kroger, speak with the manager, and scream loud enough while complaining for the entire store to hear, and never return the first time this happens.
I’m lucky enough to have options. A lot of small towns aren’t. This idea needs to die fast, and it won’t unless we are loud and borderline violent in pushing back against it. Tank their sales and reputations as quickly as possible.
Edit: because people think I hate th manager, changed wording. And yea, it sucks that I can’t scream directly at the CEO, but if you’ve silent, this gets implemented with no friction at all, and they declare it a success.
The barely above minimum wage manager doesn’t make these decisions and all you gain from screaming at him is bringing down the mix of everyone around you.
The best way to handle this is to not shop at Kroger. Not when they start doing it. Now. Kroger won’t get my money until they publicly admit this is a bad move and walk it back before it happens.
I think the implication of screaming is more to let the whole store know just how exactly fucked this idea is, to get everyone talking about it. Yea the manager doesn’t make the decisions but if he hears no push back, the rich fucks at the top sure don’t.
A manager of a Kroger in a metro area is pulling above 6 figures after their quarterly bonuses are added in.
And has zero influence on corporate policy.
But enacts corporate policy.
This isn’t new. Websites have had higher prices when browsed with a Mac than when browsed with Linux.
Plus returning visits. Airlines have been caught charging higher prices to someone who returns later to purchase an airfare that they previously looked at.
don’t worry. prices will come down when albertsons and kroger merge. large corps are just more efficient.
While the sarcasm in your comment is painfully obvious, certain people, like the average fox news host (aka psychopaths), will read it and see the upvotes and think that we are up voting because we agree. We don’t, we are up voting their dark humor.
Also, fuck you fox news. Fuck you very much.So elegantly written - thank you!
I actually do worry about this. Im such a sarcastic person and I can’t keep from doing it on the web but I wonder if every comment is going to birth a new cult. And this comment I want to be clear is 100% not sarcastic, I truly feel this way. nowadays is nuts.
Ok, look… I know it’s not technically a rule, but we’re going to need you to just start putting “/s” at the end of all your comments. Just add it as a signature line so it shows up on everything, just to be safe. You’ll just have to consider it like some kind of magic charm or ward to prevent something like The_Donald from being conjured up.
Ill staple it to my tps reports.
If corpos start dynamically charging for shit, im gonna start to dynamically disassemble they’re stores with vodka, some paper and a lighter.
Then spend almost the rest of your life in prison. What a brilliant strategy.
Come on, live a little!
So in the future, we pay the homeless in front of the store to get groceries for us for 5% of the price we would have to pay, with a 20% tip? Ah, wolt 2.0.
Interesting. Progressive private taxation.
Progressive
Oh you sweet summer child…
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All this time I thought we’d eat the rich. Turns out they’ll eventually just eat each other instead.
They will eat us
This sounds very illegal.
“I will make it legal”
-Capitalists since before Reagan, but especially and most successfully during and after Reagan.
They’ve literally made political bribery as legal as
apple pieassault rifles, you think some consumer protection laws will stand in the way of their greed?
"If you’re starving, we’ll use an API with your bank to charge you $10 more than your entire net worth. In that moment we’ll offer you a credit card with a 37% adjustable interest rate that only adjusts up to cover the overage (but credit card takes 6-8 business days to process, so you will go over). We’ll then be left with no choice but to also process an overdraft fee on your bank account with daily penalties for the overage since you are being irresponsible.
And we’ll use AI to generate a picture of everyone you love in a room laughing at you, because fuck you. By overdrafting, you triggered a clause in our user agreement (that you agreed to) which states that we can charge you whatever we think it’s fair for that picture. The picture will then regenerate each month, indefinitely, on an auto subscription, unless you cancel by hand delivering a paper cancellation form to our cancellation office in Guam."
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