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Comment by nom | Hacker News Reader

Adjusting prices by demographic is so common in many industries.

Charging less for children, families and the elderly is the same thing. Charging less for women in clubs. Same with booking hotels and flights, based on browsing history, IP address, cookies and the extrapolated demographic.

Even a repair contractor adjusts his prices up for someone who lives in a mansion with expensive cars in the driveway, and down for a single mother with three young kids running around her.

Of course Tinder charges more for older men, why wouldn't they. Every industry ever wanted to be able to do this, and some can now automate it easily with all the available demographic data they collect.

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> "Nowhere on Tinder's website, privacy policy, or in its terms and conditions does the company say that it will charge you a different price based on your personal data," Choice's Erin Turner said.

This is the key bit here. You go in expecting a level-ish playing field (it's not really level, obviously, but for other reasons.) Turns out that to even get access to the same service as young people, you have to pay 5 times as much as them. Dating when you're older is already difficult so making it even more difficult isn't exactly great.

Now, the argument here is that Premium is a choice, you don't have to get it. That's true but I still find it unfair that certain categories get an artificially inflated price. I'm fine with discounts for younger people as they tend to earn less (especially queer women, which are noted as having the lowest asking price for Premium.) However, it shouldn't come at the expense of other users.

> However, it shouldn't come at the expense of other users.

This seems extremely naive.

What is the difference between these two hypothetical grocery stores:

At Pete's, apples cost $3 per kilo, but if you're under 25 and can prove it, pete will give you a $1 discount.

At Jane's, apples cost $2 per kilo, but if you look over 25, jane will stick you with a $1 'ugly old fart' surcharge.

And yet you seem to be arguing that jane's store is over the line, but pete's is a-okay.

That seems rather silly. So all Tinder has to do is adjust _the wording_ used in their tiered pricing model and they're in the clear?

> Dating when you're older is already difficult so making it even more difficult isn't exactly great.

Honestly 50 people have given this similar vibe. You people make it seem like someone has a gun to your head, forcing you to use a dating app. There are alternatives. It's a free market. If you don't like something, don't spend money on it.

> Adjusting prices by demographic is so common in many industries.

And often illegal.

Discrimination based on sex/gender or age is (usually) prohibited in Europe, for example, unless there are very compelling grounds to do so.

The fact that there's a 10:1 ratio of male to female users on dating platforms might be considered "compelling".

If we reverse the "expensive for older men" and call it "discount for younger men/free for women" is it still discrimination?

Of course. The issue lies in the difference based on gender/age, not the weighting to either party

> Discrimination based on sex/gender or age is (usually) prohibited in Europe

From museums to bus fares, europe is littered with discounts for 65+ and <12 or <18.

So is this a case where government run orgs get to price discriminate but business can't, or where the laws make explicit exceptions for gigantic subsets of the economy (I'd call transportation a pretty big sector), or... what? Your claim that price discriminating based on age is illegal in the EU is hard to believe without some proof.

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