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Comment by wildmusings | Hacker News Reader

A few problems with this article:

1. The absurd proposition that it's unjust that you will find a better deal if you spend more time looking for one. Of course you will.

2. The claim that e-commerce is a regressive tax on the poor because purchases are bigger percentage of the poor's income. You can say the same thing about any purchase. A burger is a bigger percentage of a poor person's income than a rich person's income.

Paribus is providing a great service, but this is a marketing/PR article pretending to be serious economic commentary and analysis. It's just hopping on the bandwagon of a narrative that's politically en vogue (that the world is stacked against the poor).

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Hey Marco,

Thanks for the kind words on the service. On your feedback, here's my take:

1. Stepping back, isn't it more absurd that people are, by default, charged more unless they spend significant time dealhunting? The claim is not that the disparity itself is unjust, just that it's time for this to come to an end.

2. For all of the biggest e-Commerce players (Amazon, Walmart, etc.), their biggest business lines (and ones where they're investing the most) are in the sales of basic necessities (food, household goods, etc.). So considering how dynamic pricing will impact people (esp. re: basic necessities) is important. I'm not sure why you're dismissing the key point so quickly -- if we care at all about helping bridge the income divide, we should care about helping the poorest get the most affordable prices.

In any case, I wrote the article because it really did shock us. Joe is a real person and a friend and we hope it does some good to show a small slice of what we're seeing.

>> "1. Stepping back, isn't it more absurd that people are, by default, charged more unless they spend significant time dealhunting? The claim is not that the disparity itself is unjust, just that it's time for this to come to an end."

I strongly dislike such tactics since it causes people to waste a ton of time dealhunting, but isn't this usually to the benefit of the poor? These tactics allow companies to price discriminate and charge the rich more -- since they won't spend the time clipping coupons, waiting inline on black friday, or waiting for sales -- and thus theoretically subsidizes the 'discounted' prices for the poor.

On a separate note, what information from my email gets sent to your servers? Do you run a search for "Amazon", "receipts", etc. in GMail's cloud, then only send matching email to your server?

Me too man! On time spent dealhunting -- data from the Federal Reserve shows that it goes the other way: http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/working-.... It's counter-intuitive, but the wealthy actually spend more time shopping than the poor, not less.

On the second -- exactly. Paribus is designed to only pull in emails that appear to be from known merchants (Amazon, Bonobos, Best Buy, etc.).

> I strongly dislike such tactics since it causes people to waste a ton of time dealhunting, but isn't this usually to the benefit of the poor? These tactics allow companies to price discriminate and charge the rich more -- since they won't spend the time clipping coupons, waiting inline on black friday, or waiting for sales -- and thus theoretically subsidizes the 'discounted' prices for the poor.

Even without ericglyman's link to corroborating data, I would assume it goes the other way. Coupon-clipping and online deal-hunting requires time and, especially, emotional energy that the poor often don't have; and since the poor generally have to use essential items until they physically fail, and then scrabble frantically for the first available half-decent replacement, they don't have the luxury of waiting for special sales.

1. To paraphrase what the fine folks in the US like to say, the world doesn't owe you a deal.

The merchants do deals not for the customers, but for themselves: to maximize profit, increase market share, and maybe achieve some other goals. If you guys are communists, and think corps are evil, and the poor are exploited, that's fine, but how can you hope to successfully operate in any industry without comprehending the basic motivation of the principal actors?

We just have a different view.

In a highly-competitive marketplace, the stores that treat people right will win volume. Those who win volume take the market. So don't rip customers off (or be extremely quick to correct it when you're called out) and you'll gain customer loyalty and all the subsequent transactions.

The world doesn't owe you a deal, but then again, the customer doesn't owe you their next purchase. Life is long. As a store, your job is to keep earning customer trust so they come back.

How do you reconcile your view of how you think things are with how they actually are?

ie. if what you're saying were true, why are there still businesses that only give deals to people who hunt for them?

There are all kinds of players along the spectrum. It's just that the ones that grow to become the largest (Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Jet, etc.) tend to operate this way (and offer Everyday Low Prices).

Getting away from the usual capitalist moralizing, Paribus has a time-tested business model I've seen before. Very well-compensated people discover companies overpaying for (say) a utility, and offer to negotiate for them.

> To paraphrase what the fine folks in the US like to say, the world doesn't owe you a deal.

I’m from the US. 40% of us believe the earth was created a few thousand years ago. Be immediately skeptical about anything we commonly say. (http://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists...)

(And it even contradicts the whole point of the "US". We’re born into all sorts of bizarre deals, like the so-called social contract I never consented to.)

Hey Eric,

I think you make a good point here. I'm not sure it always works out one way or the other though. We can talk in generalizations, but there are also very savvy poor shoppers and very careless rich shoppers. My inclination in matters like this is that it's better to arm people with information and encourage them to be savvier. I think what you guys are doing is a great example of this, using technology to empower people over their own finances.

More of a musing: I do wonder if it is ultimately self-defeating. If everyone were to use Paribus, companies would stop offering special deals in the first place. Maybe it's a good thing overall. But the savvy poor shoppers would be hurt by this.

> They're trying to take advantage of a narrative that's politically en vogue (that the world is stacked against the poor).

Are you seriously implying that this is a mere matter of opinion? Sociocultural disadvantage is what being poor means, for as long as mankind has measured wealth. Certainly there's disagreement about what should be done about that, if anything, but the fact of the situation is not in doubt.

A cause can be moral, and right, and successful, and still attract shills attempting to jump on the bandwagon. I'm gay, I'm really happy with how LGBT rights are progressing, but that doesn't mean I have to like it when Frito-Lay rolls out a line of rainbow Doritos. (http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2015/0918/Doritos-releases...)

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