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Comment by Turing_Machine | Hacker News Reader

> Really think it'll stop there, when GM can get an extra $1/customer by telling Station A that you're critically low on gas and can't make it to another gas station, so they can gouge you $5/gallon and you have no choice to pay it?

Or maybe the station owner will demand sexual favors and your first-born child, or that you join ISIS, or that you get out of your car and do a strip-tease beside the road.

This would last about as long as it took the first customer to notice that the previous customer paid $0.01/gallon less than him, whereupon the gas station owner would get a (well-deserved) online lynching.

Not to mention that virtually every gas station I've seen in my life has the price prominently posted on a large display. You think customers wouldn't notice if that were constantly changing?

We won't even go into the over-the-top "charging $5.00/gallon more" scenario. Any station that tried that would be out of business within days.

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While the amounts he mentioned were extreme, gas stations needing an extra turn or that are a little further up the road generally have to price their gas lower. Its quite possible these gas stations will have a few cents of extra pricing power for the convenience.

I'd prefer the dumb maps that do not give my supplier a price advantage even if its a few cents. It adds up significantly over time which is why they'd be willing to pay in the first place.

> This would last about as long as it took the first customer to notice that the previous customer paid $0.01/gallon less than him, whereupon the gas station owner would get a (well-deserved) online lynching.

It would cause a lot if online conspiracy theories and moderate outrage if anyone did find out.

> Not to mention that virtually every gas station I've seen in my life has the price prominently posted on a large display.

If everyone can see the prices of the closest stations on their dash, those displays might vanish because "no-one uses them anyway".

> We won't even go into the over-the-top "charging $5.00/gallon more" scenario. Any station that tried that would be out of business within days.

Like Uber is out of business becauase of surge pricing?

If only one small station is doing it, they might get repercussions. If many stations (or large chains) do it, it might become normalized.

> If only one small station is doing it, they might get repercussions. If many stations (or large chains) do it, it might become normalized.

Of course, it won't be presented this way. It'll be presented as 'discounts' (from an inflated base price) for filling up when you're over 50% full, then a lesser discount when over 20% full, etc. And, well, if you didn't bother to take advantage of the discounts then whose fault is that, eh? But it'll be effectively the same.

From what I understand if you work at a gas station, you get a phone call and they tell you to change the price on the sign, right?

If everyone can see the prices of the closest stations on their dash, those displays might vanish because "no-one uses them anyway".

At the time that I had reason to know such things, there were strict laws around gasoline price signage. Much of it, I imagine, was based around old-school versions of what folks are worried about: price transparency and accuracy. For instance, if you want to raise the price, you must first make absolutely sure that the sign is changed first. Because the state takes a dim view of advertising a price that differs from the pumps.

That was a long time ago, and laws change, but I would guess in this case that the laws haven’t changed much. Point is, the worries might come to fruition, but we’ve been down this road decades before and hopefully we haven’t lost our collective common sense in the meantime.

Source: worked at a couple of gas stations in Indiana in the 80s.

> Like Uber is out of business becauase of surge pricing?

There is a difference between raising the price of a limited resource (Uber vehicles at peak times, or oil prices during a war in the Middle East) and outright gouging.

Most people understand that.

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