The problem is of course not the application of knowledge and optimization, but a lack of informed decisions.
I'm imagining something like taking a picture of a barcode or the object itself or alternatively a URL, and then seeing alternative product types. where other consumers can suggest and vote on top 5 alternative product types without advising brands for example.
I'm also quite sure that the lowest level employees walking around in those stores during the introduction of the price optimizations were suddenly bombarded for a period with different questions/requests from customers who were obviously dissappointed and that the employees were well aware that sale of some product types in demand was halted to increase revenue on others.
I'm a bit torn over how regulation could help, or stop "helping" like upholding libel laws (in case mapping commercial product URL's to alternatives could be portrayed as libel). It's also environmentally unfriendly to ship everything instead of picking things up in the hardware store (which can happen on bicycle etc). So part of me really thinks it is somehow the civic duty of the brick and mortar hardware stores to continue selling say block and tackle systems, say by regulating that "if you sell single pulleys, and electromotor winches (two extremes), then you should also sell at least one type of block and tackle system" but this is obviously hard to generalize in a systematic way. An alternative is to have consumer groups / construction sector list essential product types.
I would really like to hear more ideas on how to somehow (in)directly include the consumer's interests into the optimizer's loss function...
EDIT: another traditional entity could be viewed as having a natural interest to inform the consumer or construction worker: the insurance agencies could have a common interest to mandate that every sale or offer of an electric winch be accompanied with a reminder (or signed acknowledgement?) not just of the dangers of low-feedback up down button controlled electric winches but also of potentially safer alternatives especially when the user will only seldom use the device, and be less familiar with the dangers. But that would only work because the blind optimization by one party led to a potential increase in danger to their clients. Also it would only work if the insurance agencies don't just look up what tools were used during the accidents in their database, but for each one of them gather a detailed report and try and determine what other tool would have been safer to use, which is probably a bit more work than they are accustomed to.
Buyers need their own, preferably open-source, optimizers.
For nascent examples, see VRM (Vendor Relationship Management), buycott.com, Apple's papers on differential privacy for on-device data, digi.me and reputation schemes in grey/dark markets.
In existing markets, viral media is one of the few brand feedback mechanisms with low latency influence on decision systems, computer or human. But media has its own incentive problems.
The problem is of course not the application of knowledge and optimization, but a lack of informed decisions.
I'm imagining something like taking a picture of a barcode or the object itself or alternatively a URL, and then seeing alternative product types. where other consumers can suggest and vote on top 5 alternative product types without advising brands for example.
I'm also quite sure that the lowest level employees walking around in those stores during the introduction of the price optimizations were suddenly bombarded for a period with different questions/requests from customers who were obviously dissappointed and that the employees were well aware that sale of some product types in demand was halted to increase revenue on others.
I'm a bit torn over how regulation could help, or stop "helping" like upholding libel laws (in case mapping commercial product URL's to alternatives could be portrayed as libel). It's also environmentally unfriendly to ship everything instead of picking things up in the hardware store (which can happen on bicycle etc). So part of me really thinks it is somehow the civic duty of the brick and mortar hardware stores to continue selling say block and tackle systems, say by regulating that "if you sell single pulleys, and electromotor winches (two extremes), then you should also sell at least one type of block and tackle system" but this is obviously hard to generalize in a systematic way. An alternative is to have consumer groups / construction sector list essential product types.
I would really like to hear more ideas on how to somehow (in)directly include the consumer's interests into the optimizer's loss function...
EDIT: another traditional entity could be viewed as having a natural interest to inform the consumer or construction worker: the insurance agencies could have a common interest to mandate that every sale or offer of an electric winch be accompanied with a reminder (or signed acknowledgement?) not just of the dangers of low-feedback up down button controlled electric winches but also of potentially safer alternatives especially when the user will only seldom use the device, and be less familiar with the dangers. But that would only work because the blind optimization by one party led to a potential increase in danger to their clients. Also it would only work if the insurance agencies don't just look up what tools were used during the accidents in their database, but for each one of them gather a detailed report and try and determine what other tool would have been safer to use, which is probably a bit more work than they are accustomed to.