> You can't infer anything about the cost of a particular car by knowing the cost of the seats.Oh man, my car analogy isn't accurate ;-)
> Cars and Big Macs, like pretty much anything, are priced in no way according to their manufacturing or contents cost
This may be true for cars and big macs, but you know what I'm saying -- knowing the components contained in a product is different from knowing the spread on that product, even if knowing the comnponents tells you something about the spread^1.
In any case, this is all irrelevant to the central and irrefutable point -- that that the way the algorithm works is of immediate and obvious importance to the customer.
> but not to the end consumer.
Sorry, but the burden of proof here is on you.
How is the algorithm not important to the end consumer? It's deciding how much money they get each week. How many things in life are less important?!
> but they are under no obligation to make those details public.
In fact, it'd be unsurprising to learn that they are.
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footnote 1: BTW, I think you're unintentionally arguing against yourself.
In the event that knowing the components (i.e. the leather, the algorithm) tells you nothing about the spread -- as you maintain in your last comment -- you're basically conceding my point that there is a difference between knowledge of components (i.e., what you're getting) and knowledge of spread. In which case revealing the components can't possibly be justified on the basis that companies shouldn't have to reveal spread.
My argument was that even when components do tell you about spread, sometimes it's still necessary to say what those component are. And there are clearly examples of products where "what you get" does reveal spread (e.g., anything closely tied to commodities w/ very little or inexpensive manufacturing).
But as I said, this is all a bit of a tangent.