10+ hours of podcasts, in 5 minutes.
12 quotes from 1 episode on Odd Lots, each with a timestamped link to the source.
Lindsay Owens states that algorithmic software breaks the uniform public price tag to extract higher payments from consumers. Retailers use hidden experiments and tracking tools to charge varying rates, costing some families up to $1,200 more a year for groceries.
Varying grocery rates on a single app generate estimated annual penalties of $1,200 for family baskets.
“We estimated that because of these differences, some families could end up paying as much as $1,200 more in a given year…”
From Instacart: Secret Shoppers Found 75% of Groceries Varied in Price
The fixed price tag originated from a religious conviction that all people are equal and deserve identical rates.
“The Puritans were hagglers, and the Quakers didn't like it. They felt like there were moral problems with haggling. All men are created equal under God, they thought, and we should pay the same amount for a bushel of apples at the Quaker marketplace.”
Food delivery platforms build agitation indexes to track consumer behavior for targeted pricing and promotions.
“The patent was for a 16-factor agitation index that DoorDash was building…”
From Lindsay Owens on Algorithmic Pricing and Device Telemetry
Landlords share sensitive market data through software to align apartment rates instead of competing. This system pushes rent up to 25% higher than a competitive market allows.
“When we don't have price competition in our economy, we're in real trouble.”
From Algorithmic Price-Fixing Is Quietly Killing Competition
“So we saw RealPage, another case of algorithmic price fixing, where landlords in a city, who would usually compete with each other, were able to share competitively sensitive information and align on pricing, resulting in rent prices as much as 25% more than you would see in a competitive market through this software.”
From Algorithmic Price-Fixing Is Quietly Killing Competition
McDonald's builds pricing tools to prevent independent operators from undercutting one another. The corporation ties lease renewals and second-location approvals directly to whether a franchisee conforms to the algorithm.
“So even, you know, companies like McDonald's are building sophisticated algorithmic pricing tools to ensure that even franchisees can't compete against each other.”
From Algorithmic Price-Fixing Is Quietly Killing Competition
“When McDonald's is evaluating renewal decisions, when McDonald's is evaluating whether or not you as a franchisee can pick up another property and open a second location, they evaluate things like your conformity to the pricing algorithm.”
From Algorithmic Price-Fixing Is Quietly Killing Competition
The uniform price tag functions as a public good because comparison shoppers keep rates low. When stores secretly identify price-sensitive buyers to offer them hidden deals, rates climb for everyone else.
“When they're able to be picked off, you know, if a store can identify who they are and quietly push them a discount, prices will go up for the rest of us.”
Instacart acquired an AI platform to conduct continuous pricing experiments on consumers. A test of the app found that 75% of items carried different prices for different people buying at the exact same moment.
“Because Eversight was an AI company that built a platform to allow retailers to run pricing experiments on their own platforms.”
From Instacart: Secret Shoppers Found 75% of Groceries Varied in Price
“What we found: 75% of the items were differently priced for different shoppers, same time, same place…”
From Instacart: Secret Shoppers Found 75% of Groceries Varied in Price
“…we've had a price tag for about 150 years in this country, and I think it's given us a lot. It gives you predictability.”
“…and all of this was going into an index to be matched to things like whether or not you were going to get a promotion, what types of offerings you would see first in the menu, sort of the ordering of the menu, all of this was connected.”
From Lindsay Owens on Algorithmic Pricing and Device Telemetry
How we attribute quotes. Every quote was matched against the episode transcript, so the words and the timestamp are real (we trim filler words like "um", nothing else). The name comes from our written summary of the episode, and we use it only when a separate check of the captions finds that person on the episode. YouTube gives us no voice-by-voice transcript, so open the timestamp to hear who is talking. See a wrong name? Tell us and we fix or remove it.
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