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micromacrofoottoday at 5:41 PM2 repliesview on HN

you already do pay a price difference for many categories of items, insurance is a big one... where you live, how old you are, gender, etc

it used to be the norm with health insurance until the ACA dropped discrimination for chronic conditions

airlines charge more if you're too large to fit your seat

online retailers very often charge people more, there are hundreds of factors now... but one funny case was mac users getting redirected to more expensive hotels by travel sites

car insurers will raise premiums for people who haven't switched recently, I had to switch every 6 months for a couple years until one of them just stopped hiking prices around renewal

dynamic pricing is very very prevalent, but doing it on food (like health insurance before it) is particularly egregious


Replies

ericmaytoday at 5:48 PM

> airlines charge more if you're too large to fit your seat

I don't think this is a good example, because you're literally using more of the product that's being sold. I get where you're coming from but this one doesn't seem to really reinforce the point you are trying to make. It's like selling by weight or something if you wanted to compare it to groceries.

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flowerladtoday at 5:49 PM

There is charging more because your costs are higher (most of your examples), then there is charging more because of opportunism. Insurance is customized because the costs are higher. That's fine.

Taking advantage of your personal circumstances that is unrelated to cost to charge you more--especially when it is hidden from you--is what is bad and should be illegal.