this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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Yet again Lemmy shows that much of the userbase is young and has little general knowledge. A/B testing is quite standard, and there is nothing shady about testing different prices to see what consumers will purchase more.
A couple of times I've been walking in a mall (dating this anecdote back a couple of decades or so. heh) and got asked to participate in product testing where I was shown - in the case I remember better - two cans of soda with different designs. Strawberry soda - one pink can, one red can - which one I was more likely to purchase.
A/B testing is quite common as companies figure out how to sell you more. Assuming it's randomized, it's completely ethical.
Key difference here.
Do you normally participate in how companies set their pricing? No.
Do companies update their pricing? All the time.
All you don't like is random people paying different prices. It's not unethical, it is normal business practice, whether you are ignorant of it or not.
Something being normal business practice doesn’t make it ethical.
I mean I agree that AB testing is normal, and not really anything to start clutching your pearls about.
But this is a pretty patronising statement, mate.
edit: too long of a reply, nobody cares as much as I wrote. Thank you for feedback. I humbly disagree, but appreciated anyway.
Why is "randomized" what makes it ethical?
Companies change prices all the time. Is that unethical? All that happens in an A/B test is that different people get different prices, and the company sees how many people buy at which price. There is no one single ethical price for anything. Thanks to capitalism, you charge what the market can bear. And it's not like we're talking something like a million dollars vs a dollar. The amounts are both pretty clearly within a reasonable amount.
Randomised is not what makes it ethical. It's what makes the AB test statistically valid such that you can test your hypothesis.
Ethical would be to run the test, gauge the click through rate to checkout to find a winner, then for all those you charged the higher price to give them a discount code such that everyone gets the product at the same price. What you're testing is the click through rate of a price advertised further up the funnel.
Maybe later you can say ok the rates didn't drop off people seem ok with the higher price. Higher price for all. Or not as the AB test would reveal.
Getting the same price in the end is great and all but I can't say being tested on without my prior knowledge or consent seems ethical.
That kinda depends on where in the world you are. In Europe we have strong protections such that users need to consent to that type of testing (remember those annoying cookie banners? well what do you think they're for 😉). But if you're in the US... well, my apologies.
Well, regardless, it's a part of our capitalistic system, and clearly people here on Lemmy are unaware of how business works.
Ethical would be for them to look at all their Capex. Opex and charge a healthy 20% profit on top. And if they can't survive. Fold shop and do something else. A/B testing randomised or not, simply sees customers to be squeezed.
Who gets to decide the exact profit margin all companies must stick to?