How was the life before dynamic pricing?

the_right_god@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 5 points –

It drives me crazy when prices of some products changes multiple times in just several minutes span ... I'm curious about your experience with buying stuff/planning holidays before dynamic pricing became a common thing.

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For holidays: You decided where you wanted to go and when, then you called a telephone number or went to a local travel agency, they told you the price, and you paid them. Usually you'd either send in a cheque or hand over a cheque, which took a few days to clear, and then they'd send you your tickets by post. If you were really advanced you might shop around a little bit, but most of the time you'd end up with the same price, so most of us didn't bother.

That sounds like a great experience, maybe not the fastest way to get a ticket, but at least prices were not hiked up like they are now

Oh the prices were hiked. Just everyone hiked them the same amount and they knew you were not going to find another better price. Said another way, just because the prices were fixed didn't often result in savings for the customer....

Prices on average were higher, but you also always knew roughly how much stuff costs. Now the same vacation can be either really cheap or ridiculously expensive or anything in-between so you have to spend a lot of time reaearching and looking around for a deal.

That's an entirely new concept to me. Where does this happen outside the stock market?

plane tickets,hotels,online stores, almost everywhere where prices can be controlled automatically

Okay, interesting. I don't fly, I don't book hotel rooms, but I do buy stuff online and I haven't seen this ever. Weird.