this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
296 points (97.7% liked)
A Boring Dystopia
16161 readers
413 users here now
Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.
Rules (Subject to Change)
--Be a Decent Human Being
--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title
--If a picture is just a screenshot of an article, link the article
--If a video's content isn't clear from title, write a short summary so people know what it's about.
--Posts must have something to do with the topic
--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
--No NSFW content
--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They have these at the local Canadian tire, they take 2-3 minutes to change the displayed price, flickering a dozen times as they do. Real slow epaper screens
This ^ All the grocery stores in my area have them and it has yet to be an issue.
Also, not sure if you know this, but apparently if you have the Crappy Tire app, you can get the tags to flash/blink if you're looking for a product. Not sure how exactly it works on the customer's end, but my mum was telling me about it lol
Here's the thing: You live in Canada, where consumer protection laws mean something and the law isn't largely based on which side of a case can burn money the longest on court fees and outlast the other side.
Here in the US, companies doubling the price of something just so they can mark it as on sale for 50% is illegal, but still happens all the time for big sales like Black Friday. Hell, Amazon does it to people with a Prime membership in order to recoup what they spend on the free shipping - double dipping with your subscription fee and increasing the price on things. Airline companies and hotels will increase the price of a flight or room on a specific day based on how often you search it up (if you allow cookies, that's how they track it. You can look up the same page in a private window and get a totally different price for the same flight or hotel room).
Sony just announced a few weeks back that they were going to roll out "dynamic pricing" for PlayStation games.
No, Canadian companies pull the same bullshit too. Consumer protection laws are little more than "agreements" that many companies are directly pulling out of. In particular with grocery stores, if Galen Weston (the owner of the largest family of grocery chains in the country) wants it, it happens. Look into the bread price fixing situation from a few years back. Nothing actually came of it on a legal front, aside from metaphorically smacking the companies on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and being told they're being bad.
Fair enough. Have companies up there talked about "surge pricing" as well? I remember from this past summer companies like Wal Mart were talking about using electronic price tags to update prices in real time at different times of day and different seasons depending on demand. Given examples were things like increasing the price of water and ice on hot days or ready made meals around lunch and dinner time.
Didn't know that, I'll have to check it out