I've dreamed of a dishwasher for people who prioritize clean dishes quickly and quietly over the incremental savings from using asymptotically less water or energy. See also low flush toilets and clothes washing machines.
42,624 karma · joined March 12, 2007
Your argument is based on the conspiratorial belief that "corporations" are a monolith conspiring to allocate the savings from self checkout. You have not explained why each of them is not incentivized to use that savings to reduce costs to take more business from their competitors. Is your answer that the businesses are all colluding? You have also not explained why they are constrained at all in the amount they can raise prices. The drip theory makes no sense. This is all basic economics.
It's a problem because the business models are providing alternatives of what their customers value. You're arguing that because Costco, one of, if not the most successful retailers in the world, can do it why can't all stores? I can assure you every business wants to be Costco.
But also, I've been to Costco. And they offer what they want in quantities that they want. And it's often not what I want no matter how well they treat their employees. Also the checkout lines were very long.
Business 101? Take a step back. What you're describing is the feedback mechanism of the competition that drives prices down. Supply, demand, price. Econ 101. The reason prices aren't infinite is not because the evil corporations are conspiring to increase them slowly enough that customers barely notice. It's because, if they increase them too much, they will lose business to their competitors.
Apple has the ability to raise prices because customers value its ecosystem. But, OK. Why didn't they raise the price by thousands? Do you think people didn't notice the few hundred dollar price increase drip? It looks to me like people did notice. It's because at a certain price, it's worthwhile to hold your nose and use a different operating system.
Congratulations. You've identified different business models.
> I still remember when all the fast food chains raised their prices together
If this is true, what force are you imagining constrains all the fast food chains from not having n times their current prices? Adjust n to whatever value is lower than your hyperbole trigger.
Economics happens on the margins where the reality is that store A reduces its costs and lowers its prices to compete with Store B. Or are you paying $100 for a jar of peanut butter?
It's very popular to say this in some places, but wouldn't you expect that the money that businesses are saving when they do this is passed along to the customer in lower prices? Since they're competing with other businesses?
How do you come to this conclusion without a deep dive into a supermarket's finances?
Indeed not. You're the one who made the comment on something I submitted.
"Phase 1 | Launch
October 2025
Special Notice publishing (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.
Website launches (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.
Rules and prize announcement (Oct. 23): Detailed draft rules and prize structure are announced, specifying objective and subjective judging criteria."
Especially since there are plenty of people who post here who won't work on defense-related activities despite availing themselves of their protection.
Impressive conviction but no one needs a bucket full of gumballs.
There's a site that lists the AWS instance types, so maybe...