To try to keep up with what is going on, I subscribe to several newspapers, including four well-known international titles. One I found I was not reading as much as the others, and when they sent me a renewal email saying that unfortunately they were obliged to raise their price to — I cannot remember the exact number, let us say US$250 per year — I decided it really was not worth it. So I went to their customer service page and clicked "Cancel." The page may have asked me why, and when I clicked on "Price too high," it came back and asked whether I would prefer US$25 per year, that is, a tenth of the original ask. Why yes, I rather think I would, I said to myself, and clicked on "Renew."
I am happy. And they are happy. Their marginal cost per subscriber is pretty much zero, and they have got me paying US$25 per year, which is not as good as what I was paying before but is better than the zero I would be paying had I actually cancelled. I have since had a similar experience with one of the other international titles, for which I am also now paying a fraction of their original renewal offer.
So everybody is happy. Except maybe some lawyers and economists who will be upset that "price discrimination" is taking place. (Yes, right here in River City! With a capital "P" and a capital "D"!)
Price discrimination is the technical name for charging different prices to different people for the same good or service. These days, of course, we think all discrimination is bad. Even "discriminating taste" is "elitist," probably also colonialist. But price discrimination makes more deals possible, and deals that do not make both parties better off do not take place. And what is so bad about people being better off?
Price discrimination used to be harder. When the newspaper I was thinking of cancelling was flogged on the corner newsstand, it was hard for the vendor to say "25 cents for you, sir, but 50 cents for you, ma'am, and, to you, young fellow, we will give you this one free in hopes you will become a faithful reader." But since it is now dealing with us one by one in private, and many of us do not have the technical knowledge to buy our subscriptions low and resell them high at a profit, price discrimination is much easier than it used to be.
Every time we phone our telecom supplier regarding this or that aspect of our bill or service, the person at the other end of "the line" invariably says, "Let me look over your account and see if we cannot get you a better deal" — and they almost always do.
Literally every day now, Amazon sends me a selection of a dozen or so e-books priced — for that day only — at $1.99 or less. Every few days I click on "Buy," thus giving Amazon's algorithm even more information about my tastes. You never know if you will enjoy a book you have not yet read — that is the nature of the reading deal — but Amazon's choices for me do not often disappoint.
The Montreal Canadiens charge different prices for different seats in the Bell Centre, which is not surprising since some afford a better view than others. And they charge more for different games — also not surprising, since some are more in-demand than others. But, given the active secondary market in tickets these days, it would not be surprising if there were now literally hundreds of different ticket prices, maybe even thousands, for any one game. People sitting beside each other may well have paid quite different prices for their tickets. (Interesting factoid: On one secondary market, the cheapest Bell Centre price for a ticket to the current Montreal-Tampa playoff series cost more than the most expensive ticket in Tampa — though arbitraging that price difference requires flying to Florida.)
