Instacart's AI-enabled pricing experiments may be inflating your grocery bill

> A Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative investigation found that some grocery prices differed by as much as 23 percent per item from one Instacart customer to the next.

And this may expand to physical shopping.

> Until recently, the Carrot Tags website informed prospective retailer customers that the technology could be used to test prices on in-store customers. “Fully unlock the potential of ESLs’ instant and accurate pricing changes with dynamic price and promotion optimization strategies at the shelf,” the site said.

There is a video for people who would prefer it.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osxr7xSxsGo

I think this is a great example of how even in a 'free market' the notion of price transparency is easily cheated and results in behavior that is clearly anti-consumer. Much like how the push for algorithmic pricing has resulted in cartel-like behavior for apartments, we should view this the same way.

It's all so very tiresome, especially because you have to use whatever shitty app grocery stores foist upon you and/or give up your personal data in order to get the real prices on products. There were multiple times I noticed where I was being shared 1.5x to 2x for the same goods simply because I refused to give up my personal data, and eventually I relented because I needed to save the money.

Call your senator. Surveillance pricing should be illegal.