How To Price Software Without Just Rolling The Dice

In a recent Stack Overflow podcast (73?) Joel said that he would helped the world a lot better if he made a robot that you could ask about software pricing, and it spat out the answer "Raise your price by $200"

True. I didn't mean that some markets don't support price discrimination, just that customers' perception of it -- if they know it's going on -- is terrible. With airline tickets, people see prices fluctuating over time: lots of bumps but also some apparent connection between the time/effort involved with buying early and a generally better price. Customers seem to be more infuriated if they can easily tell that someone else is getting a better price on the same exact seat at the same exact time. Given the fluctuations and the expectation of fluctuations in airline pricing, there's not much direct comparison going on among airline ticket consumers.