The Price is Rigged

价格已被操纵

Today, Explained

2025-12-17

25 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Instacart is using customer data to charge different prices for the exact same products. It's called surveillance pricing, and it means you could be paying more based on who you are. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Dustin DeSoto, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. The Instacart delivery bear in Minneapolis. Photo By Jerry Holt/Star Tribune via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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  • By now you know that companies will do just about anything to jack up prices on you,

  • and AI is offering them an additional edge.

  • Delta Airlines is bragging about how they're going to boost profit margins with a new AI algorithm that determines how much you will personally pay for your next ticket.

  • Thanks, AI!

  • It's almost Christmas time, but when I was searching American Airlines website,

  • I'm at the screen where I'm submitting my credit card information and the flights went up over $100 a flight.

  • This is price gouging.

  • It's not dynamic pricing.

  • It's price gouging.

  • They are charging different amounts based on what they believe you will pay for your groceries.

  • Dynamic pricing, surveillance pricing,

  • lots of terms that mean companies set prices based on what they know about you, and they know a lot.

  • That's coming up on Today Explained.

  • I might not have money for food or to hang out with my friends, but I always have money for candles.

  • I always have money for candles.

  • When a U.S.

  • boat strike prompts questions about war crimes, what does that mean for U.S.

  • foreign policy and the rules guiding use of force?

  • Have we just started a new forever war that has no limitation, no genuine logic to it?

  • I'm Jon Finer.