Everyone is aware that they have been doing this since forever, right?
Like, you've traveled to a different location, and discovered prices are different in different cities?
Or how prices downtown are usually higher?
Some of the other companies discussed go beyond this, yes, but the headline is just absurd
There are parts further down in the article that are more concerning because they're using what should really be more private data in their pricing algorithms, like your geolocation, personal history or even the type of phone you have. But "store location" has been an aspect in pricing algorithms since basically the dawn of capitalism.
I don't eat at McDonalds. My friends don't eat at McDonalds. The McDonalds is so bad where we live kids don't like McDonalds because the food is bad even as far as fast food standards go.
20 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49901900
Please ban all on demand pricing government. Limit it to 1 price a day or something
Let Ai decide if you need a drink.
https://wilson.seattle.gov/2026/09/23/seattle-becomes-first-...
It's kind of funny seeing unabashed capitalism attempting to achieve similar equalization goals to progressive tax policy. But I guess this has always been the case with market segmentation anyways (e.g. paying ridiculous amounts extra for 1st class on the airplane, or a special paint job or trim for your car).
I think the main difference is what people consider fair, transparent, and respectful of privacy. Additionally, people want to feel like they have a choice.
Fair price discrimination would involve some kind of bidding system, but that has high transaction costs for both sides. And naturally sellers aren't interested in maximizing global efficiency or competitiveness. Like any company they prefer "solutions" that give them an advantage over the consumer.
It still might be a net win overall, and I don't have strong opinions one way or another beyond being apprehensive about knee jerk public policy proposals, but surely the sellers will see a larger share of the benefits, possibly accelerating wealth inequality and people's growing sense of economic insecurity. That sense of security is critical for maintaining free (or freer) markets, otherwise the population is prone to using their political powers to try to take back bargaining power, and very often that winds up being a loss for everybody.
Isn't this highly illegal in most developed countries?
What I do know is that laws on these issues are woefully slow to adapt.
<snore>
McDonalds restaurants are required to conform to a monolithic corporate identity as part of their franchise agreement but many are individually owned.
I'm not trying to excuse dynamic algorithm based pricing (and personal opinion, McD is crap ultraprocessed pseudo-food), but I'm pretty sure there's a $2 difference between the price of two totally unrelated shawarma vendors for approximately the same product that are within 800 meters of each other in my city as well.
Next I'm sure some people will discover and be shocked by the fact that the non-corporate-run starbucks kiosks in some major international airports (run by an airport catering/specialist service company) have different prices than their corporate-run local starbucks.
Now if the topic is, as someone else has described in other linked threads on the same topic that different people using the app are getting different pricing for the same store, that's new to me and certainly something to be concerned about. It sounds like what airline ticket booking/purchase sites are known to do depending on your cookies, IP, useragent, browser fingerprint, etc. Very slimy.