#+TITLE: Crazy Prices
#+SETUPFILE: ../../theme_lev1.setup

Everyone knew that prices could vary, and a lot, from one moment to the
next. The good opportunities were to be caught on the fly! The prices of
air tickets, trains, and for any other trip, have always fluctuated.
Concerts, hotel rooms, holidays, clothes, shoes, technological gadgets,
auction items of all kinds could cost from a few cents to several
hundred euros.

Also there were the currency changes to keep in mind, sometimes a
purchase in pounds, dollars or maybe bitcoins could be extremely
convenient. Not to mention the Asian sites, which often sold the same
consumer goods at bargain prices. To only discover later that, after
exceeding a certain, rather modest, price, the shipping costs, the
customs taxes and the added VAT caused the bill to rise, and by quite a
lot.

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Cecilia was certainly not a novice navigator, on the contrary, she was
well aware of the mirrors for larks scattered everywhere on the Net.
Often friends and colleagues trusted her for advice, and she always
pulled an unmissable deal out of the hat, and really cool tricks.

Yet she too was caught in the infernal machine of profiling algorithms.
Three months before Christmas she received a notification from her
personalized scanner, a suitably trained application capable of finding
the most suitable offers for her. Two tickets, for her and another
person of her choice, for one of the most popular locations of that
season. 

Cautious, she checked all the details. No hidden costs, all
regular. Magnificent. /Click, I buy it!/

Unfortunately, the Paypal account that Cecilia used to speed up the
purchase procedures was empty. And also the connected debit card.
Cecilia didn’t trust anyone, so she occasionally topped up a card that
she used only for online shopping, but she completely forgot to do it.
What bad luck!

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She stopped using the smartphone and moved to the laptop, it would have
been faster, and also it was safer as it was set up for e-commerce. She
hastened to reload the card, but it would take a few minutes even for a
geek like her. Voila, now the balance was positive, and… “We are
sorry, session expired”.

She had to start over. It’s okay, okay. She reloaded the page. She
repeated the procedure very quickly. She had checked, everything was
perfect, but one last look is not bad… It is not possible! The price
had increased by 15%, and after just three minutes, four at most!

In any case, it remained a real bargain, and then it was exactly what
she was looking for for the Christmas holidays. Michael would have
appreciated the surprise. It’s okay, okay. /Click, I buy it!/

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“Sorry, the last seats at this rate have just been awarded,” the laconic
warning annoyed her. “Hurry! There are still two seats at the smart 2
rate!”, A new window appeared blinking on the screen to pressure her.

It is not possible! Another 15% at least, Cecilia quickly calculated.
She began to feel teased, but by now the idea of the journey had
nested firmly in her desires and did not want to give up. /Click, I buy
it!/

“You are redirected to your card’s 3D authentication system, the process
could take up to 30 seconds,” yet another window warned. Ah, yes! She
ran to get her cell phone, beep-beep, she received the password for the
double check, introduced it in the white field, click, it’s done! “Thank
you for your purchase. You will receive a confirmation email as soon as
possible with all your data. Goodbye”.

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Cecilia had made it! But, wait… she spent almost two times what she
thought at the beginning! How was this possible? She could not
understand it, or even understand what had happened.

* To Understand
  :PROPERTIES:
  :CUSTOM_ID: to-understand
  :END:

Why do prices vary so much on the web? Contrary to what some say, it is
not easy to give a satisfactory answer to this seemingly banal question.
Not all sites operate in the same way and few people have access to the
mysteries of software that manage price fluctuations. 

However, there are some basic principles. The most important are /yield management/ and
/profiling/.

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Yield management: practiced by some airlines already long before the
invention of the Internet, it is a marketing technique that is spreading
in the transport sector, in the hotel sector and in many others.

The main idea is to increase profits related to sales (“profit
management”, /revenue management/) according to expected demand and
changes in actual demand. An example instead of a long speech: if you
are looking for two or three months in advance, it is quite easy to find
a London-Loughborough train ticket for 25 £. However, this rate is only
valid for a limited number of places. Once these tickets have been sold,
a ticket can cost 39, 49, 59… up to 99 euros for the basic fare. 

The closer we get to the train departure, the higher the prices will be. You
may need to buy a seat in a higher and much more expensive class.

On the other hand, you may happen to find discounted first class tickets
that cost less than full fare second class tickets. In short, prices
fluctuate. Furthermore, it is still possible that the ticket price may
decrease as the departure approaches, in the event that for example
there are still many unreserved seats. In practice the manager in this
case will make a sort of “sale” at the last minute, to fill the
available places.

Other parameters often also come into play. If you want to travel during
peak times, or during holidays or during the days considered high season
for any reason, it will be difficult to find a discounted ticket.

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Profiling: based on the research carried out by a user (or by other
users connected to it), the same product can be offered at different
prices. The price of a good or service can also vary based on all the
information relating to the user available on the platform on which he
wishes to make the purchase.

For example, a customer who visits the same offer multiple times can be
considered a hesitant customer. The machine can raise prices so that it
decides as quickly as possible for fear of losing a good deal.

Some media have talked at length about IP tracking, i.e. identifying and
tracking customers based on their IP address. However, it should be
noted that this is just one of the many possibilities available to those
who follow your every move on the web.

* Good Practice
  :PROPERTIES:
  :CUSTOM_ID: good-practice
  :END:

Yield management is not illegal. In any case, it is very difficult to
prove that you are using illegal profiling techniques to modify the
offer. The sites that use it usually use proprietary and non-public
algorithms, so it is impossible to establish general rules. 

To find the cheapest tickets, the general rules are always the same: buy them in
advance or try your luck at the last minute. Believing in the “magical”
site that always offers the “best” rates can hide nasty surprises. Some
sites charge higher prices (or administrative fees) at certain times
(usually in the evening) or on certain days (for example on weekends),
so be careful!

The online sales sites have been designed to make you spend without
thinking! They use all kinds of marketing techniques and field a
plethora of tricks to make us feel like we are always making a good
deal. But this is not always the case. 

Among the simplest yet always effective techniques we find countdowns, for example: “this offer is
still valid for 8 minutes, hurry!”, With the time that is inexorably
elusive; but also persistent messages and proposals “just for you”. And
remember: What is written on the screen is not always the truth!

* A Word from the Hacker
  :PROPERTIES:
  :CUSTOM_ID: a-word-from-the-hacker
  :END:

A few simple tricks can help. In particular:

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- delete cookies and browsing history on the website: it is often enough
  to magically bring prices back to the starting point
- use two browsers: one to browse and check prices, one to buy
- use the smartphone to check the prices and the computer to buy.
  Warning! You don’t have to be logged in with the same account!
- for other forms of tracking: use browser extensions and other tricks
  to avoid, limit, distort, prevent tracking

** Real Hackers
   :PROPERTIES:
   :CUSTOM_ID: real-hackers
   :END:

In order not to be localized starting from one’s own IP address, it is
also possible to browse through VPN, which stands for Virtual Private
Network. These real tunnels on the Internet make your traffic anonymous
and therefore profiling impossible.

Free VPNs are always impractical, they can hide honey pots or other data
collection systems.

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Remember: “If it’s free, you’re the goods!”

** A Pinch of Philosophy
   :PROPERTIES:
   :CUSTOM_ID: a-pinch-of-philosophy
   :END:

The idea that a deal can be excellent for those who sell as well as for
those who buy is typical of a vague yet particularly virulent ideology,
the liberal extremism known as /libertarianism/. This set of
philosophical-political-economic doctrines affirms, among other things,
the theory of /win-win/, that is, the possibility and the need to /win/
in every economic interaction. 

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But we know from experience that this is not the case at all.
