Latest / Silver FM 100.6 / Worried you’re being overcharged when shopping online? Listen to this

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Worried you’re being overcharged when shopping online? Listen to this · Silver FM 100.6

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  Speaker 2: I have a VPN, and I've seen the price of
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: a rental car change dramatically based on whether I had
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: my VPN on and also if I checked back a
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: different day. It could change by $ 200 or something like that.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: This is the way that Americans are starting to understand
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: that something pretty big has shifted.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: In the economy.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: And that is the way pricing works. We used to
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: sort of assume that there was a standard price for items.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: And I think little experiments like the one you just
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: described are becoming more and more common. And they're the
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: ways in which many Americans realize that everything has changed
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: about pricing.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Hey, it's Marielle Segarra. You're listening to LifeKit. And you
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: just heard from Lindsay Owens, author of the book Gouged,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: the end of a fair price and what that means
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: for your wallet. Lindsay has a Ph.D. in sociology and
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: researches economic forces like inflation. And she says technology has
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: changed the way retailers price everyday items, groceries, plane tickets,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: that shirt you have your eye on.
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  Speaker 4: Pricing has gone high tech. And in many ways, what
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: we're seeing is Big tech sort of reinventing the ripoff.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: You know, these are old tricks, but they've been supercharged
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: by new technologies.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And companies are not necessarily being secretive about this.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: Someone took to Twitter to mention that the price of
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: their airline ticket had increased $ 200, you know, overnight on JetBlue.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: And they tweeted, look, man, I'm just trying to get
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: to a funeral.
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  Speaker 4: Like, what gives here? And JetBlue tweeted back. have you
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: tried clearing your cash and your cookies?
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  Speaker 5: Oh my God, stop.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, this was JetBlue's own Twitter account, like company Twitter.
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  Speaker 3: And it was this kind of.
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  Speaker 4: Unbelievable confession in broad daylight by corporate America that your
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: data decides your price these days. And if you want
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: a better price, you should try tricking us.
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  Speaker 2: Wow. Now JetBlue did later delete this tweet. And in
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  Speaker 2: a statement to NPR, the company said it does not
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  Speaker 2: engage in surveillance pricing or use personal information or web
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  Speaker 2: browsing history to set individual prices. The company also said
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  Speaker 2: the reply to the Twitter complaint was an error made
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  Speaker 2: by a customer service rep and that the suggested steps
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  Speaker 2: would not have.
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  Speaker 3: Changed the airfare.
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  Speaker 2: But a congressional inquiry was launched to investigate whether JetBlue
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: uses surveillance pricing. And a class action lawsuit was filed
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: against JetBlue earlier this year, accusing the company of tracking
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  Speaker 2: customer data and using that to set prices. On this
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  Speaker 2: episode of Life Kit, I talk with Lindsay about how
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  Speaker 2: pricing has drastically changed and what we can do about it,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: including how to cover up your trail so it's harder
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  Speaker 2: for retailers to watch you and then sell you stuff
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: at personalized prices. We'll also talk about what comparison shopping
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: means now.
• 3:33
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  Speaker 1: So you can get in.
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• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Lindsay says, when you ask Americans, what is a fair price?
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: They often point to something called cost plus pricing.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: Basically, they like the idea that the price is based
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  Speaker 4: on how much it costs to make the item, plus
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  Speaker 4: a little bit of margin for.
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  Speaker 3: the seller.
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  Speaker 4: They're fine with that too, right? They don't expect you
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  Speaker 4: to sell at a loss or to break even. And
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  Speaker 4: what we find when we look at these experiments is
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  Speaker 4: when you start giving people experimental conditions that veer from
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  Speaker 4: cost plus pricing. So we're charging you more because it's
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: snowing outside and we think we can charge you more
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  Speaker 4: for a shovel, not because it costs more to make
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  Speaker 4: the shovel that we have on our shelf.
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  Speaker 3: People get really upset about that. They feel like that's
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  Speaker 3: very unfair.
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  Speaker 8: Right.
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  Speaker 2: It's like plus a margin, but not a ridiculous margin.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And we often get into conversations about pricing, particularly when
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: resources are scarce. And so we obviously had this in
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  Speaker 4: a national conversation about World Cup ticket prices over the summer.
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  Speaker 4: FIFA's decision to use dynamic pricing for soccer tickets for
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  Speaker 4: the first time ever, actually in the organization's history, in
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  Speaker 4: which effectively auctions off the tickets to the highest bidder.
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  Speaker 4: And how does this relate to Cost Plus? Well, of course,
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  Speaker 4: this is not about how much the ticket costs. This
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  Speaker 4: is about the market determining how willing you are to pay, right?
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  Speaker 4: And the people who are willing to pay the most
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  Speaker 4: are deemed to value the ticket the most.
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  Speaker 2: When you look at a sentence like whoever values it
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  Speaker 2: most will pay the most, that's assuming that everyone has
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  Speaker 2: an equal amount of money to pay from, right? Like,
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  Speaker 2: Someone could really value something, but the most they can
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  Speaker 2: legitimately pay for it without going broke is X. And
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  Speaker 2: then someone else can value it very little, but they
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  Speaker 2: have a ton of money. So yeah, okay, I'll buy it.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't really make sense to tie value to money
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  Speaker 2: in a country where there's so much wealth inequality. 100%.
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  Speaker 4: And when you ration or allocate scarce resources that way,
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  Speaker 4: You know, like what you ensure is that you're going
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  Speaker 4: to get John Arnold and Bill Gates and people like
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  Speaker 4: that enjoying the World Cup, and you're actually going to
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  Speaker 4: have really passionate fans who would value that experience. You know,
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  Speaker 4: I mean, they almost sort of couldn't put a dollar
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  Speaker 4: amount on how much they value that experience, you know,
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  Speaker 4: watching it at a sports bar or on their couch.
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  Speaker 2: How has the way companies price their products changed over
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  Speaker 2: the past, say, five or ten years?
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  Speaker 4: The most, I think, egregious way... is this idea of
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  Speaker 4: personalized pricing. This is sometimes better known as surveillance pricing,
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  Speaker 4: but it is the intersection of two things that the
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  Speaker 4: American people just hate. The first is being spied on,
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  Speaker 4: and the second is being overcharged. And personalized pricing marries
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  Speaker 4: those two terrible features of corporate.
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  Speaker 3: America and the economy, right?
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  Speaker 4: The idea is collect data on you, to better ascertain
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  Speaker 4: how much they can charge you. So a good example
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  Speaker 4: of this to go back to your VPN example is
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  Speaker 4: there was a study a while back out of San Francisco,
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  Speaker 4: which showed that Expedia was charging people from the Bay
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  Speaker 4: Area more than people from middle America for the same
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: hotel room in Manhattan. So the idea being the hotel
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  Speaker 4: in Manhattan doesn't have a price. You And our estimate
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  Speaker 4: of your net worth based on where you're logging on
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  Speaker 4: from is going to determine that price.
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  Speaker 2: Takeaway one, pricing has gone high tech. One of the
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  Speaker 2: most surprising examples is personalized pricing, also called surveillance pricing.
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  Speaker 2: Companies will use your browsing data, demographics, and purchase history
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  Speaker 2: to decide what to charge you. Retailers will also use
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  Speaker 2: algorithms to run pricing experiments.
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  Speaker 4: And the best example of this, my organization late last
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  Speaker 4: year exposed a massive experiment that Instacart was running on
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  Speaker 4: millions of Americans while they were shopping for their groceries.
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  Speaker 4: They were basically using a platform that they had bought
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  Speaker 4: from an AI company called Eversight to run A-B tests
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  Speaker 4: on Americans to figure out how much they would pay
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  Speaker 4: for every item in their grocery cart. And what we
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  Speaker 4: found is Even people logging on to pick up their
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  Speaker 4: groceries from the exact same pickup location at the exact
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  Speaker 4: same time, the exact same grocery items, you know, were
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  Speaker 4: being charged as much as 23% more than other shoppers
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  Speaker 4: at the same time. You know, companies have always really
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  Speaker 4: run A-B tests in the store, right?
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  Speaker 2: For instance, a retailer might test out a different price
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  Speaker 2: for the same item at two different store locations.
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  Speaker 4: But they're sort of able to do this on a
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  Speaker 4: totally different scale, totally different.
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  Speaker 3: Hidden from sight.
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  Speaker 4: This was one of the things that Eversight really bragged
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  Speaker 4: about when they built this price experimentation platform is a
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  Speaker 4: feature of this is that your customers won't know it's happening.
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  Speaker 4: You can run these tests without their knowledge.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think the idea of going into a
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  Speaker 2: physical store and picking up an umbrella and then, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the person behind you picks up the same umbrella and
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  Speaker 2: that you'd get into the same line and check out
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  Speaker 2: and you would get charged a dollar more than the
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  Speaker 2: person behind you. That makes me want to flip a table.
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  Speaker 3: Totally.
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  Speaker 2: But that is what's happening online.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that is exactly what is possible online because we're atomized.
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  Speaker 3: We're isolated. The social context is gone.
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  Speaker 4: I have no idea that I just paid $ 3 more
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  Speaker 4: than you for the same umbrella. And so we're not
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  Speaker 4: mad about it. And we go about our day. And
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  Speaker 4: they pocket the $ 3.
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  Speaker 2: Coming up, Lindsay's tips on how to get around surveillance pricing.
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  Speaker 2: Retailers run their experiments, and you can too.
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: This week on Shortwave, El Nino.
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• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Takeaway two, Lindsay's first tip to duck and weave and
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  Speaker 2: avoid surveillance pricing is to stop shopping through apps or
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  Speaker 2: while signed into a particular retailer's website.
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  Speaker 4: Loyalty programs and in-app shopping are ways in which you
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  Speaker 4: give companies not only a lot of information about yourself,
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: your location, you also give them full information about your
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: purchase history. They know what you click on. They know
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  Speaker 4: what you buy. They know what you click on and
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: don't buy. They know what you hover over but don't
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  Speaker 4: click on but don't buy. They know what you leave
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  Speaker 4: in your cart.
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  Speaker 3: You offer a lot of.
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  Speaker 4: Data that can be potentially turned against you in pricing decisions,
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  Speaker 4: whether that's fewer discounts or higher prices.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that a lot of people, they know
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  Speaker 2: that the trade-off is data privacy and If they sign
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  Speaker 2: up for a loyalty program, they say, OK, but I'm
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: going to get 10% or 15% off. So who cares?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: So they know what I buy, whatever. But then if
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  Speaker 2: the company is using that data to actually price items higher,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: then you're not saving the money that you think you're saving.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Also, when you're in an app, you're in their user interface,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: their closed system. So you may not even realize that
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  Speaker 4: the prices that are being offered have been personalized or
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: tailored to you.
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  Speaker 2: Another tip you have is to make sure you're comparison
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: shopping and not just in the way people might traditionally
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: think about it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I think they're running all these experiments on us.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: And of course, one way to try to, you know,
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  Speaker 4: find a better price is to kind of turn the
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: experiment back on them, right? And you and I log
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: on at the same time together and see who gets
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: the better deal and then you buy it and I
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: Venmo you for my share or you sit down with
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: your roommate on the couch or you sit down with
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: your husband on the couch or you call your mom
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: and you have her log in and Try logging in
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: versus not logging in. Try in the app versus on
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: the website versus in the brick and mortar store versus
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: through a third party broker. Updating how you think about
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: comparison shopping and comparison shopping in a much more capacious
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: and wide ranging way is the best sort of individual
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: consumer advice because that allows you to get a snapshot
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: of how stable the pricing is, which is a great outcome, right? Oh,
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: it's the same in the app. It's the same in
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: the store. It's the same on the website. My friend
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: is getting the same price. The roll neck sweater from J.Crew
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: is indeed $ 79.
• 14:12
  Speaker 8: 99.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Great. I'm going to buy it today, right?
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: Like that's your best outcome, right? It's like you're not
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: being exposed to personalized pricing.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Takeaway three, make sure you're comparison shopping, especially for big purchases.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Check the price of a product or service across multiple devices.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Like if you're ordering a car through a rideshare app,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: ask your friends to check the price on their phones too.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Or if you're buying a plane ticket or a product,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: look at the website on your phone, on someone else's phone,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: on your laptop, while logged in, while not logged in,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: with and without incognito mode, and also with and without
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: a VPN. I use a VPN when I shop online.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: I wonder, can you explain what it is for people
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: who don't use one or who've never heard of it?
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: So a VPN is a virtual private network. And what
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: a VPN allows you to do is mask your location.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: So when you log on without a VPN, your IP
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: address is giving the company or the retailer where you're
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: doing your online shopping information about where you're logging on from.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: They often can also ascertain what you're logging on from,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: if it's an iPhone, if it's an Android, if it's
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: a PC, if it's a Mac, right? But a VPN
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: can mask some of that background information, and it can
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: also allow you to set a preferred location. And so
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: you could even run your kind of pricing experiments using
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: your VPN, where you change the location that you want
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: to be sourced from. And that allows you to see
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: if prices are varying by location, San Francisco Bay Area
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: versus greater New York area, for example, or Nashville, Tennessee,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: my hometown, right? To see if you can get a
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: more competitive price coming from a different space.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: And then you also talked about clearing your hash and
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: clearing cookies. What does that mean?
• 16:06
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: So the idea here is companies collect data while you
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: browse online, right?
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: And so they are.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: Basically absorbing a breadcrumb trail of your browsing history. And
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: so one thing that you can do is you can
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: clear that data so that a company doesn't have access
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: to it and you're effectively starting as tabula rasa as
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: you could imagine and when you're browsing. And so, you know,
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: for example, in the JetBlue example, you know, this guy
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: had been looking into flights for a while, right? He
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: was trying to go to a funeral. He was checking
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: to see if the flight prices were going up or
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: going down. You know, JetBlue knows that he has been
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: researching flights for a while and they think, oh, this
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: guy's really interested in getting to this destination, right?
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: And the idea is if you can.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: Clear that data before you go on to make a purchase,
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: then that data isn't available to the company to use
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: against you in that way.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: You also talked about trying to stop being so predictable.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: So like throwing them off the scent a little bit
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: by switching brands or changing the times and places you
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: shop or using cash sometimes or using a different credit card.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: How does this help?
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: So, you know, when we talked earlier about the types
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: of data that's really useful for companies to have about
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: you and thinking about pricing decisions, one of them, of course,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: is your purchase history and how likely you are to
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: buy things, how much of a sure thing you are.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: And so I think when a company realizes that you're
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: always going to buy milk on a Tuesday, you're always
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: going to buy cinnamon rolls on Sunday, you're always going
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: to buy your morning coffee at 8 a.m., your afternoon
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: pick-me-up coffee at 3 p.m., they can get really comfortable
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: with your purchase history and they can use it to
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: ascertain how competitive their pricing needs to be or not.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: And so some of what I suggest is being a
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: little less predictable is a way to kind of get
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: back into the fold where a company might actually want
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: to push you a discount again, for example, because they're
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: not sure if you're going to be able to buy
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: it at the higher price.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: They might want to bring you in at a lower price.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: You talk about taking back some privacy. And that means
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: basically going through your phone and being like, what permissions
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: do these different apps have? And how can I limit
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: the permissions as much as possible?
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, you decide in your app settings how much
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: data you want to hand over to these companies in
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: some cases, right? You can turn off location data. You
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: can turn off other forms of tracking. You can turn
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: off inter-app sharing, right? So one app isn't sharing data
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: with another app, for example. So those are, I think,
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: things that you can do to try to keep some
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: of your privacy protected in the e-commerce setting and in
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: the app setting in your phone.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Takeaway four, clear your browsing data routinely. Go through your
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: devices and limit the permissions that you grant to apps.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Ask yourself questions like, does this app really need to
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: know where I'm located? Also, use a VPN and try
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: setting it in different locations to check prices. What about
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: just shopping in person instead of online?
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Shopping in person is a great one.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: You will be subjected to less of the high-tech reinvention
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: of the ripoff if you are shopping in person. If
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: you shop local, if you're mom and pop small business
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: is not running super sophisticated algorithmic price fixing experiment on you, right?
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Like that's not happening.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: But a lot of these technologies are seeping into brick
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: and mortar stores. And so there are a lot of
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: new technologies in brick and mortar stores that are making
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: pricing more unpredictable. Over the past couple of weeks, we've
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: seen a lot of people filming TikToks at Walmart. And
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: what they keep revealing is there are a lot of
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: items at Walmart these days that don't have a price
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: on it at all. You go to the clothing aisle
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: and you pick something up, you've got a tag with
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: a size that And a brand, and you know it
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: has a skew, you can take it up to the cashier,
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: but it doesn't have a price. And the lack of
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: transparency without a posted price creates a lot of uncertainty
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: for people on a budget. The best example is electronic
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: shelf labels are popping up everywhere in grocery stores, in
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: large big box retailers, organic grocery stores like Sprouts. And
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: so you are going to be subjected to more price
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: variation and more unpredictable pricing throughout the grocery stores. There
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: are a lot of companies that are exploring integrations between
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: the grocery cart and the electronic shelf label and your
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: personal information, right? So your cart has a little computer
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: on it. You sign in with your loyalty program, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: that integration allows for things like personalized pricing even in
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: a brick-and-mortar store. So I don't think brick-and-mortar stores are
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: a panacea, and I think they're increasingly– you know, starting
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: to be subject to some of these same concerns that
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: we see in e-commerce, but absolutely you've got many better
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: options with brick and mortar.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Takeaway five, shop in person, but keep in mind that
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: personalized pricing is seeping into big retailers' stores too. If
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: you don't see a price tag or if you see
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: an electronic shelf label, know that you might be paying
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: more than the person behind you. Small retailers, on the
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: other hand, mom-and-pop stores, those are unlikely to be using
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: high-tech personalized pricing, at least for now. If it's a
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: service you seek, try doing it the old-fashioned way. Get
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: a cab instead of ordering an Uber, or call up
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: your local takeout restaurant, order food, and go pick it
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: up instead of using a delivery app. What do you
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: do personally? How do you shop?
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: I try to be as smart as I can about
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: my own shopping, and I do follow a lot of
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: the advice I give in the book. including like my
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: husband and I are always exchanging prices, right? To see
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: who got the better deal to the point where it
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: sort of like takes us way too long to like
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: buy a flight, right? Because we're sort of like, well,
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: what is your price?
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: And like, did you try the app? And like, what
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: if we went online?
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: And I think the reason that I can help explain
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: what's happening is I'm experiencing it myself every day in e-commerce.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: I'm also frustrated by the fact that comparison shopping has
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: gotten so much harder. I'm also frustrated by the fact
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: that pricing has gotten so unpredictable. I'm frustrated by the
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: fact that prices are high, but I have felt for
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: a long time there was something else going on underneath,
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: something changing about the basic bargain that we had in
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: the economy when I was growing up about how pricing worked.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: I stood in line for concert tickets rather than participated
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: in an auction where concert tickets went to the highest bidder.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I'm old enough to remember you know, when companies did
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: things differently. And that's really one of the reasons why
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: I wanted to write this book and frankly offer Americans
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: some validation. Like this isn't in your head. There have
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: been really big changes and understanding that and learning that
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: is a big part of how we can start to
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: call attention to it and start to fight back and
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: actually restore a fair price in this country, in our
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: economy and give shoppers a semblance of.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Fairness in our economy.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Lindsay, thank you so much for this.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: All right, time for a recap. Takeaway one, pricing has
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: gone high tech. One of the most surprising examples is
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: surveillance pricing, where companies use your browsing data, demographics, and
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: purchase history to decide what to charge you. Takeaway two,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: stop shopping through apps or while signed into a retailer's website.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Takeaway three, Make sure you're comparison shopping, especially for big purchases.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Check the price of a product or service at the
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: same retailer across multiple devices while logged in and not
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: logged in with and without incognito mode and with and
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: without a VPN. Takeaway four, clear your browsing data routinely
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: and also go through your devices and limit the permissions
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: that you grant to apps. And takeaway five, shop in person,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: but keep in mind that personalized pricing is is starting
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: to seep into big retailer stores too. Consider small and
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: local stores instead. Call a cab or a car service
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: instead of a rideshare through an app, or order your
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: takeout on the phone and go pick it up. That's
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: our show. By the way, I was wondering, if you're
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: enjoying the show, would you spread the love a little bit?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Think of one person who might benefit from this episode
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: and send it their way. Thanks for being part of
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: the Life Kit community. This episode of Life Kit was
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: produced by Claire Marie Schneider. It was edited by Sylvie Douglas.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Our digital editor is Malika Garib, and our visuals editor
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: is CJ Ricalon. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: and Lauren Gonzalez is our executive producer. Our production team
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: also includes Andy Tagle, Lennon Sherburn, and Margaret Serino. Engineering
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: support comes from Jimmy Keeley. Fact-checking by Andrea Lopez Cruzado.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I'm Mariel Cigarra. Thanks for listening.
• 25:26
  Speaker 10: Before Bernie Sanders or AOC, a man named Michael Harrington
• 25:30
  Speaker 10: tried to market socialism to the American public.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Tens of millions of Americans are poor, miserable, in body
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: and in spirit.
• 25:39
  Speaker 10: On NPR's ThruLine, how the founder of the DSA created
• 25:43
  Speaker 10: a modern political movement. Listen to ThruLine in the NPR
• 25:47
  Speaker 10: app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 25:50
  Speaker 7: Pelosi, whether you love her.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: One of the best speakers the House of Representatives have
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: ever had.
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: Or hate her.
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: That crazy Nancy, she is crazy.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: She's a force to be reckoned with. We're not letting
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: anything stand.
• 26:03
  Speaker 8: In our way.
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: From KQED, part of the NPR network, The Speaker, how
• 26:08
  Speaker 7: Nancy Pelosi changed the face of power. Find it wherever
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: you get your podcasts.