What is Algorithmic Price Discrimination?
Pricing algorithms can use your location, device, and situation to estimate what you are willing to pay, and adjust the price accordingly.
Where it comes from
Ride-Sharing & Travel Apps (2010s)
How it hooks you
Exploits situational urgency: when you have fewer options, you accept worse prices, and algorithms can detect when that is the case.
What the research shows
Uber's research team discovered that users with nearly dead phone batteries are willing to accept massive surge pricing up to 9.9x normal rates. The company maintains that they do not use battery levels to determine prices.
Source: Keith Chen, NPR interview (2016)
How to resist it
Compare prices in a private browser or on a second device before booking anything significant.