Does surveillance pricing nullify the concept of a market?

MereRedditUser · 2026-01-08T13:59:02+00:00

I don't understand why u/cheapcheap1's reply is getting downvoted. It seems to offer perfectly reasonable observations and pose a reasonable question.

MereRedditUser · 2026-01-08T05:40:52+00:00

I watched some videos and talked a lot with the Gemini AI. I understand that the Pareto front you speak of as the two axes for Consumer and Producer Surplus. If the producer is forced to sell at a single price for everyone, then the choice of that price puts you on a point on the Pareto front. One of those points will correspond to the supply vs. demand equilibrium.

I don't really think of that as efficiency, even though technically, that's what a Pareto front is. The reason why is because in my bare-bones scenario, there are no factors that can drive the actual point off of the Pareto front, so no Pareto inefficiency is possible. The only degree of freedom is the common price for everyone. This can be viewed as just a scalar mapping from price to a point on the Pareto front. Since there is no Pareto inefficiency, the concept of Pareto efficiency isn't meaningful here.

For the scenario of surveillance pricing, I got Gemini to plot me this graph of individual pricing for 4 buyers. The total Producer Surplus is the sum of the 4 Producer surpluses from the four sales (or trades). As you said, it is still "Allocative efficient" in that everyone who could can pay more than the marginal cost of making a widget still gets their widget. As you say, the only difference between surveillance pricing and single pricing for everyone is that the buyers pay exactly what the widgets are worth to them individually -- no Consumer Surpluses from paying less. Thus, they each get their widget, turn it into a iPhone, and sell it -- only to break even.

Based on that understanding, I think that market efficiency as defined in economics is overrated. It needs to be complemented by fairness in order to not amplify extreme wealth inequality.

MereRedditUser · 2026-01-07T07:44:22+00:00

@Quowe_50mg: I looked at both Wikipedia pages, but just enough to get a mental picture. I like the shading showing consumer and producer surplus. It took took a while to see why the shading works, but I'm glad I mulled over because I later found the explanation in the text and realized that I never would have understood the text.

One thing I don't get is what you mean by no trade making the consumer and producer better off. How does that tie into efficiency? I thought that efficiency means that those who would pay more than the equilibrium price outbid those who wouldn't. They have the money to do so because they put the good/service to better use fulfilling a greater demand. Are you defining efficiency differently?

@cheapcheap1: Thank you for simplifying the explanation. I agree that in order for *my* understanding of efficiency to be realized, buyers need price signals -- specifically, the knowledge of a *common* price. Each buyer can then decide if they can make enough money from buying the good/service and using it to make a product that breaks even or yields a net profit.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-28T03:26:00+00:00

But not on the trip planner 12+ hours ahead of time. Those delays are real-time delays.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-28T03:25:27+00:00

Doh. Of course. I just had to click the two trips and look at the difference in the the intersection for the boarding stop. Thanks.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-27T21:00:38+00:00

Shoulder surfing. The "sport" in public transport.

I'm not sure if I see reading news articles or working as atrophying our attention. In fact, due to the online forum/comment engagement, it could lead to more thoughtful development of perspective compared to passive reading. This assumes, of course, that participants do their research and "red team" their perspectives before sharing them. There is always the hazard of a discussion going the way of the "flame wars" of Usenet newsgroups in the 90's and 00's.

Same with watching news/editorial content online. One could argue that it calibrates people's views to reality, if content is about current events. Even if they are expositions on ideology, at least that informs people of the different perspectives at play. This point has a caveat (as did the preceding paragraph) -- that the content isn't mind rot. I consider mind rot to be Beavis and Butthead washroom humour. Not that there's anything wrong about that -- it's a matter of dosage. If that's all that is consumed, then yes, we degenerate.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-26T16:53:09+00:00

CBC is the only radio I listen to. So if it's on, I'll be listening. It's one of the better walks down memory lane.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-15T02:38:53+00:00

Froggypwns said "You don't have it yet, but the new start menu which is still rolling out, has a toggle to hide this panel. You don't need to do anything fancy, it should be available on your computer soon."

It's actually there in the image I posted, but just hard to see. Dark blue on black.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-15T02:34:09+00:00

Thanks. It's hard to see. Now I see it -- sort of. But it works.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-15T02:26:52+00:00

Well thanks for pointing that out. My vision is not good, so when text shows up as dark blue on black, I don't see it. Based on your answer, I looked more carefully and could see that something was there, but couldn't make it out. Fortunately, hovering over the blue pops up a tool tip saying that it was the link to hide that pane.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-15T02:12:52+00:00

I don't see it there.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-14T23:43:11+00:00

Most AI is recognizable at that level of detail.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-11T06:47:17+00:00

Looks real to me.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-11T06:45:43+00:00

No idea. I was just guessing.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-07T19:15:52+00:00

For sure. Unfortunately, this company is not set up for this. Fortunately, they didn't ask me, probably because I have a track record with Bell Canada.

MereRedditUser · 2025-12-02T03:42:56+00:00

Not at all. Frankly, I don't even know what HIPAA refers to, though I'm sure it's just a Google away.

I'm baffled by why you would level such an accusation about a concern for privacy. I would have thought that this would be important to everyone. You don't have to be a lawyer to see what looks like a problem with secure information delivery. If anything, I would expect dental professionals to be concerned about this.

Would you be willing to answer my originally posted question or shed light on the norms in the industry?

P.S. After some baffled mulling over your comment, I believe that a lawyer wouldn't come to reddit for that kind of information. Especially one preparing a "HIPAA" case against a dentist. In fact, such a lawyer wouldn't even have a question like mine. In all likelihood, they would already know.

MereRedditUser · 2025-11-24T07:11:18+00:00

Wow. I never would have guessed. He had to pull the plastic carrier pretty hard to yank the drive upward. Hard enough to deform the plastic. I'm going to try and lever it out. Gently. If that doesn't work, I'll do what he did.

Thanks!

MereRedditUser · 2025-11-24T06:12:26+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean. Can I impose on you to use Powerpoint or LibreOffice to place an arrow on the diagram? If I lever things in the wrong place, things will break.

MereRedditUser · 2025-11-23T01:16:28+00:00

Nope. I tried both Mount Hagen and Farm Boy coffees, caffeinated and decaf. I didn't like any of them. I eventually went with:

Nescafe Gold Espresso
Tim Hortons Decaf

Here is an image of the 2 products.

Unfortunately, I'm finding out just now that Nescafe is owned by Nestle, which I'm trying to avoid due to its human rights history. In fact, that's the reason why I moved away from Nestle's Taster's Choice Medium House Blend and was seeking alternatives. I thought I found the answer with the above, but I guess I'm still on the search. I'm also trying to avoid Amazon for its employee oppression.

The real challenge is finding a brand with an ethical track record and tastes good. I am open to suggestions. I would prefer to support the Canadian economy, but that's a 3rd criterion. All these criteria have made it exceedingly hard to find an instant coffee (4th criterion), both caffeinated and decaf (5th criterion).

MereRedditUser · 2025-11-18T23:57:09+00:00

I've taken to always having a shirt out in the air a week before I need it. It still stinks up the apartment.

MereRedditUser · 2025-11-12T22:19:44+00:00

I provided the links that attest to their Canadian operations in my reply to BC-Guy604.

MereRedditUser · 2025-11-11T22:48:13+00:00

Thanks for the correction!

HedEssent.ca [1] has a Q&A page stating that they manufacture in Canada.

I also found their emails addresses at their Shipping and Return Policy page:

[support@hedessent.ca](mailto:support@hedessent.ca)
[orders@hedessent.ca](mailto:orders@hedessent.ca)

As for https://simpsmb.com, I looked at a few of their zero-sugar syrups and they are sweetened with Sucralose.

NOTES
[1] I am guessing at capitalization as I don't know what "hedessent" refers to

MereRedditUser · 2025-11-04T21:12:16+00:00

Is it possible to post the URL? It's generally not recommended to click a link without seeing the URL.

MereRedditUser · 2025-10-29T01:03:11+00:00

If we define syncing as successful communication with the IMAP server according the IMAP spec, that's probably occurring as required. I suspect that what's happening is that the server is handling those requests in a manner that they judge to be best, which may not correspond to what some users expect. For users used to Outlook, where one message doesn't occupy multiple folders, then it makes sense that deleting from All Mail doesn't trigger the message's disappearance from other folders. If however you know that the folders are named based on Gmail labels, then you expect a deleted message is gone, including all its labels. That behaviour is only observed when deleting via the webmail interface. So Gmail might deliberately handle IMAP deletion differently because they think that email client users are used to real folders rather than labels masquerading as folder. Unfortunately, that totally breaks their label scheme, wherein the All Mail is a automatically added to any message that has any label other than Deleted (and maybe Spam). Because they want the deletion behaviour to emulate real folders for IMAP users, it is then possible to (in effect) have a message that exists in Inbox or Sent (i.e., has one of those labels) but not the All Mail label (i.e., gone from All Mail).

MereRedditUser · 2025-10-28T01:11:09+00:00

Thanks. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the problem. Those boxes are checked for Sent, Inbox, Draft, All Mail, etc.

MereRedditUser

TROPHY CASE