Skip to content

Delta moves toward eliminating set prices in favor of AI that determines how much you personally will pay for a ticket

Technology
122 90 0
  • Of course it's an Israeli firm that is enabling this greedy behavior. They already price gouge as it is. Can't we go back to the formula of "our cost + our profit margin adjusted for market". This bleeding the customer dry bullshit should stick in bullshit avoidable video game micro transactions.

    They can't. Competition for capital is forcing them to extract the everliving profit out of people. Their competitors would not be far behind on this train if it increases profitability.

  • They can't. Competition for capital is forcing them to extract the everliving profit out of people. Their competitors would not be far behind on this train if it increases profitability.

    I acknowledge that, this is the result of unbridled capitalism.

    When a person uses social engineering and manipulation to extract money from an individual or company it's called fraud, when a large enough company does it it's just business.

    If only our government could give us some handy dandy consumer protection laws.

  • Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”

    Sooo... If you're broke, does it give you low prices vs someone who is rich?

    Kidding, kidding. We all know they're going to be fucking the lower and middle income brackets hard as hell with this. As if we weren't already being milked dry, now they want to milk the very blood out of us.

    My question is: What the fuck is the endgame? This shit isn't sustainable. Used to be that most companies were content with steady profits. The last 40+ years has shown us that simply generating a profit isn't enough, the profits must be constantly going even higher every quarter. But again, this isn't realistic or sustainable. So why the fuck has the entire world agreed to condone and enable this pathway that is ultimately doomed?

  • Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”

    Please let it be stupidly implemented such that I can convince the AI to pay me to fly Delta. (IMHO, how are they even a big airline player? I give it they are a step above Spirit but that’s all they got)

  • Sooo... If you're broke, does it give you low prices vs someone who is rich?

    Kidding, kidding. We all know they're going to be fucking the lower and middle income brackets hard as hell with this. As if we weren't already being milked dry, now they want to milk the very blood out of us.

    My question is: What the fuck is the endgame? This shit isn't sustainable. Used to be that most companies were content with steady profits. The last 40+ years has shown us that simply generating a profit isn't enough, the profits must be constantly going even higher every quarter. But again, this isn't realistic or sustainable. So why the fuck has the entire world agreed to condone and enable this pathway that is ultimately doomed?

    I was thinking the same thing, considering that I have less money to pay to fly my price should be lower, no? But the article ends on this note:

    Early research on personalized pricing isn’t favorable for the consumer. Consumer Watchdog found that the best deals were offered to the wealthiest customers—with the worst deals given to the poorest people, who are least likely to have other options.

    So basically the opposite of what it should be. I wouldnt mind individualized pricing if it meant Delta was robinhooding with their pricing model, but instead they are effectively using their pricing model to force out poorer consumers. Which makes sense from their perspective I suppose considering they can upsell more shit to people with more money.

    As someone who lives in a top-wealth zipcode (as a working class person) I assume by next year this means I will no longer be able to afford to fly out of town…

    Its starting to make sense why the GOP was working to ban regulation on AI use. This shit is blatantly unethical

  • Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”

    I am assuming this is US only? I used to fly Delta a lot when travelling between Europe and North America.

  • Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”

    That is a price fixing scam. It is why businesses are required to print prices. Altering pricing is prejudice and if it is not illegal, someone should suffer justice. This is as old as history itself. Delta is admitting to being a criminal organization. Never support the thieves and bandits stealing and looting. Never fly delta.

  • That is a price fixing scam. It is why businesses are required to print prices. Altering pricing is prejudice and if it is not illegal, someone should suffer justice. This is as old as history itself. Delta is admitting to being a criminal organization. Never support the thieves and bandits stealing and looting. Never fly delta.

    it would be a crime if the consumer protections weren't just rolled back to 1912 two months ago.

  • I was thinking the same thing, considering that I have less money to pay to fly my price should be lower, no? But the article ends on this note:

    Early research on personalized pricing isn’t favorable for the consumer. Consumer Watchdog found that the best deals were offered to the wealthiest customers—with the worst deals given to the poorest people, who are least likely to have other options.

    So basically the opposite of what it should be. I wouldnt mind individualized pricing if it meant Delta was robinhooding with their pricing model, but instead they are effectively using their pricing model to force out poorer consumers. Which makes sense from their perspective I suppose considering they can upsell more shit to people with more money.

    As someone who lives in a top-wealth zipcode (as a working class person) I assume by next year this means I will no longer be able to afford to fly out of town…

    Its starting to make sense why the GOP was working to ban regulation on AI use. This shit is blatantly unethical

    There is no fucking way that that is sustained simply due to the fact that people would BURN THIS PLACE DOWN if companies start doing shit like that. No one has money as it is. I'm not convinced we're not going to burn it down as it is.

    These elites has truly lost the plot and are going so far down the comic book villain lane, they're going to start dying like comic book villains. Dunked in acid, frozen solid, crushed by their exploding submarine, eaten by their own rabid experiments... Who knows, but I'm excited to find out.

  • There is no fucking way that that is sustained simply due to the fact that people would BURN THIS PLACE DOWN if companies start doing shit like that. No one has money as it is. I'm not convinced we're not going to burn it down as it is.

    These elites has truly lost the plot and are going so far down the comic book villain lane, they're going to start dying like comic book villains. Dunked in acid, frozen solid, crushed by their exploding submarine, eaten by their own rabid experiments... Who knows, but I'm excited to find out.

    People will not do anything. They might complain on Lemmy/Reddit/Facebook and then go watch another tiktok

  • That is a price fixing scam. It is why businesses are required to print prices. Altering pricing is prejudice and if it is not illegal, someone should suffer justice. This is as old as history itself. Delta is admitting to being a criminal organization. Never support the thieves and bandits stealing and looting. Never fly delta.

    Problem is that once Delta gets away with it, they'll all start doing it.

  • Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”

    How does a AI know whether you're rich or not?

  • How does a AI know whether you're rich or not?

    Welcome to surveillance capitalism buddy

  • Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”

    On the one hand we seem to currently have some of the cheapest air tickets the world has ever seen. If you're willing to travel like cattle.

    On the other hand it feels like air travel is now like getting on the city bus and there's some guy vomiting in front of you and a screaming kid pissing on the seat behind you, all the while you're getting herded around like a cow, your stuff is at high risk of getting stolen with no recourse, and the airline is playing mind games about the best time to buy a ticket after sneaking in a bunch of clauses designed to get you to pay more later.

  • Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”

    So its gonna run a soft credit check on you and then give you a price?

    You don't even need AI for that, and that'd be waaaaay cheaper to implement than AI.

    ...

    A Delta spokesperson told Fortune the airline “has zero tolerance for discrimination. Our fares are publicly filed and based solely on trip-related factors like advance purchase and cabin class, and we maintain strict safeguards to ensure compliance with federal law.”

    This is horseshit.

    In Economics, the entire concept of setting specific prices for specific market demographics is literally called 'price discrimination.'

    Advance purchase and different seating classes literally are price discrimination, third degree.

    Frequent flyer discounts would be second degree.

    Overall adjusting seat costs per flight based on how full or empty that flight is, is first degree price discrimination.

    ...

    This is like a company that sells chickens saying 'we don't sell chickens.'

    This is just gobsmackingly false, so blatantly so that it is actually funny.

    Airlines entire fucking business models are based on inventing new forms and strategies of price discrimination.

    ...

    What this asshat is saying is only even interpretable as true if what he means is 'we don't directly factor sexuality, age, disability, ethnicity, legally protected classes into our pricing model.'

    They of course do this indirectly by pulling a whole bunch of your meta data and then accurately inferring those things, and then discriminating against you based on that.

    It is laughably easy to get around US discrimination laws in this way, megacorps have been regularly doing this for at least decade now, both when it comes to you as a consumer, and you as a potential employee or renter.

  • How does a AI know whether you're rich or not?

    That’s a field in data science / marketing that’s been active forever… assume that companies at large have a rating of their prospects & customers & ex-customers alike which includes a notion of wealth. Either derived from consumption habits or acquired through data brokers or both usually.

  • That is a price fixing scam. It is why businesses are required to print prices. Altering pricing is prejudice and if it is not illegal, someone should suffer justice. This is as old as history itself. Delta is admitting to being a criminal organization. Never support the thieves and bandits stealing and looting. Never fly delta.

    Businesses in North America also refuse to comply with the EU rules surrounding the display of prices including VAT and unfairly compete with companies in the EU. A consumer cannot know if a company has to pay VAT in the EU or not.

  • How does a AI know whether you're rich or not?

    They buy aggregated data from every other company and organisation in existance. That includes your purchase history and behaviour in great detail. Of course they will also have the data of your relatives and friends, which they will take in to account.

  • Sooo... If you're broke, does it give you low prices vs someone who is rich?

    Kidding, kidding. We all know they're going to be fucking the lower and middle income brackets hard as hell with this. As if we weren't already being milked dry, now they want to milk the very blood out of us.

    My question is: What the fuck is the endgame? This shit isn't sustainable. Used to be that most companies were content with steady profits. The last 40+ years has shown us that simply generating a profit isn't enough, the profits must be constantly going even higher every quarter. But again, this isn't realistic or sustainable. So why the fuck has the entire world agreed to condone and enable this pathway that is ultimately doomed?

    The endgame is that nobody has money and companies go bankrupt. The end.

  • How does a AI know whether you're rich or not?

    Credit check.

  • 89 Stimmen
    17 Beiträge
    82 Aufrufe
    E
    No, I don't mean prompting users. Typical ways to increase conversion rate are locking popular features behind the subscription (like you need premium account to comment), making some content available only to premium users or limiting the amount of content you can access as a free user (like only 2h per day). So far I'm still watching videos on youtube without even creating an account and without ads (ad-block).
  • 965 Stimmen
    101 Beiträge
    491 Aufrufe
    D
    That's always worth considering. A phone app doesn't take a big operating budget to launch and maintain. Especially for state-actors.
  • 83 Stimmen
    13 Beiträge
    71 Aufrufe
    M
    It's a bit of a sticking point in Australia which is becoming more and more of a 'two-speed' society. Foxtel is for the rich classes, it caters to the right wing. Sky News is on Foxtel. These eSafety directives killing access to youtube won't affect those rich kids so much, but for everyone else it's going to be a nightmare. My only possible hope out of this is that maybe, Parliament and ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority, TV standards) decide that since we need a greater media landscape for kids and they can't be allowed to have it online, that maybe more than 3 major broadcasters could be allowed. It's not a lack of will that stops anyone else making a new free-to-air network, it's legislation, there are only allowed to be 3 commercial FTA broadcasters in any area. I don't love Youtube or the kids watching it, it's that the alternatives are almost objectively worse. 10 and 7 and garbage 24/7 and 9 is basically a right-wing hugbox too.
  • 493 Stimmen
    154 Beiträge
    680 Aufrufe
    Q
    Lets see.
  • My character isn't answering me

    Technology technology
    1
    0 Stimmen
    1 Beiträge
    14 Aufrufe
    Niemand hat geantwortet
  • 21 Stimmen
    6 Beiträge
    39 Aufrufe
    sentient_loom@sh.itjust.worksS
    I want to read his "Meaning of the City" because I just like City theory, but I keep postponing in case it's just Christian morality lessons. The anarchist Christian angle makes this sound more interesting.
  • Forced E-Waste PCs And The Case Of Windows 11’s Trusted Platform

    Technology technology
    116
    1
    317 Stimmen
    116 Beiträge
    532 Aufrufe
    K
    I was pretty lucky in university as most of my profs were either using cross platform stuff or Linux exclusive software. I had a single class that wanted me using windows stuff and I just dropped that one. Awesome that you're getting back into it, it's definitely the best it's ever been (and you're right that Steam cracked the code). It sounds like you probably know what you're doing if you're running Linux VMs and stuff, but feel free to shoot me a PM if you run into any questions or issues I might be able to point you in the right direction for.
  • AI cheating surge pushes schools into chaos

    Technology technology
    25
    45 Stimmen
    25 Beiträge
    123 Aufrufe
    C
    Sorry for the late reply, I had to sit and think on this one for a little bit. I think there are would be a few things going on when it comes to designing a course to teach critical thinking, nuances, and originality; and they each have their own requirements. For critical thinking: The main goal is to provide students with a toolbelt for solving various problems. Then instilling the habit of always asking "does this match the expected outcome? What was I expecting?". So usually courses will be setup so students learn about a tool, practice using the tool, then have a culminating assignment on using all the tools. Ideally, the problems students face at the end require multiple tools to solve. Nuance mainly naturally comes with exposure to the material from a professional - The way a mechanical engineer may describe building a desk will probably differ greatly compared to a fantasy author. You can also explain definitions and industry standards; but thats really dry. So I try to teach nuances via definitions by mixing in the weird nuances as much as possible with jokes. Then for originality; I've realized I dont actually look for an original idea; but something creative. In a classroom setting, you're usually learning new things about a subject so a student's knowledge of that space is usually very limited. Thus, an idea that they've never heard about may be original to them, but common for an industry expert. For teaching originality creativity, I usually provide time to be creative & think, and provide open ended questions as prompts to explore ideas. My courses that require originality usually have it as a part of the culminating assignment at the end where they can apply their knowledge. I'll also add in time where students can come to me with preliminary ideas and I can provide feedback on whether or not it passes the creative threshold. Not all ideas are original, but I sometimes give a bit of slack if its creative enough. The amount of course overhauling to get around AI really depends on the material being taught. For example, in programming - you teach critical thinking by always testing your code, even with parameters that don't make sense. For example: Try to add 123 + "skibbidy", and see what the program does.