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Comment by randallsquared | Hacker News Reader

what idiom should I use

Others are replying, but I don't know that there's any idiom needed. Raising the price to whatever people willingly pay is just being a merchant.

Is this the market-economics version of political correctness?

I don't think it is. Political correctness applies when people feel they can't plainly say something that's true. In this case, using "price gouging" adds nothing to the statement that prices are high except a sense of outrage, and my response was merely that I think the outrage is misplaced.

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using "price gouging" adds nothing to the statement that prices are high except a sense of outrage

Of course it does. It says:

1. the subject is a retail product with a standard price, as opposed to a market product where the price is determined by bids and asks.

2. the price is temporarily higher than the standard price due to some sort of unforeseen disruption.

3. the price will return to the standard price when circumstances return to normal.

In the present example the product that Jeff says costs $600 will cost $450 within 3 months. Just as it cost $450 for a brief moment 1.5 months ago.

Edit: Also, you are speaking for yourself about the outrage. I certainly don't have any outrage. Not does "price gouging" give me any sense of outrage.

The people who are outraged by the practice will be outraged by it no matter what you call it. And people, like myself, who have no problem with it will have no problem with it no matter what you call it.

Not to get into a prescriptivism debate but "Price gouging" has a specific meaning, not just "charging a lot of money":

> Price gouging is a term for a seller pricing much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.

> pricing above the market price when no alternative retailer is available

Not to get into a prescriptivism debate but "Price gouging" has a specific meaning, not just "charging a lot of money"

That's my point, actually.

Price gouging is a term for a seller pricing much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.

I'm only interested in the non-value-judgement related meaning. "Reasonable" and "fair" are meaningless.

What other people are saying is "you can't use that word because it's loaded with value judgement." I'm saying "OK, give me an alternative that captures the meaning without the value judgement. And is concise, clear, expressive, and widely understood."

pricing above the market price when no alternative retailer is available

This, also, is meaningless.

I don't understand your assertion that the second definition is meaningless. Charging the market price is by the given definition not price gouging.

Scarcity may be the term you're looking for.

It's meaningless because if you're the only provider your price is by definition the market price. Market price means the price on the market, not the price in a hypothetical fair competitive market.

I see. It still doesn't fit the scenario of SSDs as there isn't a single retailer.

'Gouging' is an epithet used by those who abhor the practice; that's the source of the confusion. It means more than "more than usual" or "temporarily more than MSRP"; it specifically means unfair. 'Gouging' is even a legal term, for a practice illegal in some circumstances and jurisdictions.

So by using the term, you've added confusion, including the need for your extra verbiage, to the effect of "...not that there's anything wrong with it!"

(I also think you're giving way too much weight to MSRP. Actual prices to the consumer always vary, even without a bid/ask 'market'. The MSRP -- as a coordination mechanism among producers and retailers used to loosely enforce pricing discipline -- is arguably a more-unfair practice than this market-clearing 'gouging'. So you're using a mildly-disapproving term, 'gouging', for the praiseworthy practice of maintaining a sellable inventory, and an mildly-approving term, 'standard', for a potentially-unfair collusive practice. The connotations of your chosen language are backwards!)

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