Black’s conviction has presented another challenge for U.S. authorities already working to gain the release of several Americans in Russian jails on what the White House says are spurious charges.
Does it? He isn’t a political prisoner. It sounds like he’s a horny, apparently violent dumbass who secretly went to Russia against military rules (and common sense) and then did crimes.
You can just assume it is every US company because it is.
This stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
CEOs talk to each other about this kind of shit and plan together.
Just like how “AI” has been shoved into fucking everything by everyone even though it is useless and makes a lot of people upset.
Expect all of them to do it so you don’t have a choice and they all did it to “stay competitive with each other.”
Making sure there isn’t another option is one hundred percent part of industry plans.
Just like how trying to replace fast food workers with automation and touch screens has been in the works since the 80’s at least. The tech is just finally cheap enough is all.
They actually use consultants like McKinley, who are the coordinating force behind a lot of the obviously self-destructive decisions companies are making in lockstep
atm, Wendy’s because of their plan for dynamic pricing based on how busy they are, and ‘my local KFC’, because in 2017 I had to wait 50 minutes for my order (for 2), and they gave away the last of something I ordered to someone who came in like half an hour later, and they weren’t going to be making more. (that and KFC is way over priced for their standard menu if you aren’t getting some kind of ‘deal’)
I love how reality manages to combine the most comically exploitative parts of cyberpunk fiction with literally none of the intense, vibrant, or interesting parts. It’s just a dull, gray, sexless, post-industrial dystopia with ugly cars, chronic obesity, and fentanyl addiction. And now surge pricing.
Best Buy has them too, here in the US. Its nothing new. This analyst making these comments about the price increases is just full of shit and trying to get his name out there or something.
Loblaws has had this for a while, we no longer shop thete, but it was frustrating because an item would fluctuate in price depending in what day you went. No way to budget for random pricing
To be fair to Loblaws, I’ve never seen them change prices with these mid-day, so they’re not engaged in “surge pricing” that I’ve heard of. (I haven’t been to Loblaws since the start of the boycott, but I don’t expect it’s changed.)
But I do wonder about the legality of that; right now, if the price at the till doesn’t match the item price, you get the first one free and the rest at the marked price (up to $10 items; above that it’s $10 off the marked price for the first item). But my impression is that policy is from Loblaws signing some sort of grocery code ages ago when scanners came in, essentially to assure consumers that they wouldn’t be scammed by scanners ringing up items at higher prices than advertised. I don’t think that is legally mandated.
So, then, what happens if the price changes between when you put it in your cart and when you arrive at the till? Anyone engaging in surge pricing where the timing isn’t clearly marked in advance is going to get into a lot of trouble with consumer backlash, at the very least, but I hope it’s illegal, too.
Beehaw never defederated with lemmy.ml. Most notably, Beehaw defederated from Lemmy.world which is one of the main reasons I’m happy to stay here. If Beehaw moves away from Lemmy, I’ll definitely need to find another instance that’s defederated with Lemmy.world.
I would think the price changes happen overnight. With their system each RFID type price label can be flipped when the push the pricing to the register system.
I’m sure the old way was a deterrwnt in changeing prices because they had to call staff in to swap labels. Now it is computerized, so on a whim they can adjust.
We had an oat drink we liked one day 4.99 go back to grab another the next day 7.99. Few days later 3.50…we said screw this company and just got it at Walmart where price was consitent every time.
Yeah, fair. It’s frustrating when prices fluctuate; I’m lucky that we don’t have many “must have” items on our shipping lists, and I’m very price sensitive, so I just don’t buy things that are expensive. And I only used to go to Superstore at most weekly, so I’d never have noticed daily fluctuations.
I offer you a third option: at least one Lidl in Croatia uses blinking tags for stuff they really want you to look at.
Sometime soon we’re gonna have to invent a spam filter for real life. Hey, maybe that’s the use case that the Vision guys at Apple have been looking for?
This way they can spend more time rearranging the store so nobody knows where anything is, in turn making us walk past a bunch of stuff we don’t need in an effort to try and induce an impulse purchase!
Seems the two German supermarket chains really like to have the same infrastructure everywhere. Everywhere I go the Aldis look exactly the same. They have slightly different products depending on the country. But the price tags, interior, … is basically the same. Okay and we don’t have “Flaschenpfand” everywhere… (deposit on the plastic bottles and the machines where you can return bottles.) I bet all of this makes it a lot easier for their techs and management. And it could also explain why they sometimes redo a store that still looks fine and fit it with the latest shenanigans.
And as an aside: I’ve shopped in the first Aldi store ever. It’s not far from where I live.
Yes, this is regularly seen throughout Europe for years.
You can buy such tags in bulk from China, they are very cheap at any scale really (and their use isn’t limited to just pricing).
But yes, I think some EU countries already have laws preventing price changes throughout the day or (to some extend) price differences between eg countryside and cities.
I think there should be an EU directive for this tho.
Also, because they are so cheap they just throw them out when the battery is empty instead of replacing the battery. It’s great for the environment! /s
If the price I saw when I picked an item is different to what I pay at the counter, I’ll never be back at that place again, even if it means I’m paying less.
I get the convenience part so the staff doesn’t have to go around do it by hand, but it just seems infeasible to do it for the other examples mentioned.
E.g. you go in, pick up item listed for $10, finish shopping in 20 mins, item now costs $15 at till… probably leave it (so now the staff has to re-shelf it) and start shopping at a place that is not trying to scam you.
For the other example, if there are a few packs of something expiring and they reduce the price for all the items on the shelf, everyone will just take the ones which have a reasonable shelf life left leaving the expiring ones.
To save a click: It is a federal disability program that doesn’t literally keep them from getting married, but the loss on benefits that would come from being married is keeping people from getting married.
npr.org
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