No, price gouging has a specific meaning relating to spikes in demand often in conjunction with a disaster, like doubling gas prices during a hurricane.
But raising prices for a non-essential good will probably never be gouging.
also, peak pricing is generally legal, price gouging isn’t illegal everywhere, and the definition is sometimes vague due to, you know, how vague the concept is—the definition usually includes some version of “excessive” or “extreme” pricing.
So like, if you have trouble getting food into your grocery store after a disaster, and you have to charge a little more, you’re probably safe—the idea behind price gouging ins more what happens when all the grocery store owners quadrupled their prices as they twist their moustaches and laugh, saying, “what are you going to do, not eat?”
yeah “price gouging” is not the same thing as “increasing prices a lot” or “increasing prices at a time that makes people think, ooh wee, that’s not a very nice thing to do.”
Price gouging is the practice of increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or supply shock.
You can’t really price gouge goods with elastic demand though, where demand rises and falls with the price. Luxury goods like streaming services even doubly so because they are in no way, shape, or form necessary things. If people pay the price for a luxury good that they don’t need, then by definition it’s a fair price.
Netflix isnt a necessity. Don’t like the price, don’t buy the service. It really is that simple.
Also, price gouging is only illegal in the US for necessities in declared civil emergencies.
to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.
Netflix is priced pretty evenly with every other streaming service and have been raising their prices steadily for the past few years. maybe if this was a one-time spike of like 200%, I’d agree with you (probably wouldn’t because I don’t believe luxury goods can be subject to price gouging), but this is just par for the course by now.
“Supply Shock” is not “oh no, now we have to pay writers a little more” or “we’ll have a couple fewer new shows in the next year,” it’s usually “the city’s water supply has been tainted and trucks aren’t able to get bottled water in as fast as before, now we can charge eight times as much for bottled water!” or “well, there was a hurricane that took out half the tomatoes in Italy, and for the next few weeks, the people who do have tomatoes have NYC Pizza shops by the balls.”
And the price increase usually isn’t a few dollars, but like, the prices doubling or tripling or more.
Isn’t that price gouging? Isn’t price gouging illegal?
No, price gouging has a specific meaning relating to spikes in demand often in conjunction with a disaster, like doubling gas prices during a hurricane.
But raising prices for a non-essential good will probably never be gouging.
also, peak pricing is generally legal, price gouging isn’t illegal everywhere, and the definition is sometimes vague due to, you know, how vague the concept is—the definition usually includes some version of “excessive” or “extreme” pricing.
So like, if you have trouble getting food into your grocery store after a disaster, and you have to charge a little more, you’re probably safe—the idea behind price gouging ins more what happens when all the grocery store owners quadrupled their prices as they twist their moustaches and laugh, saying, “what are you going to do, not eat?”
yeah “price gouging” is not the same thing as “increasing prices a lot” or “increasing prices at a time that makes people think, ooh wee, that’s not a very nice thing to do.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging
Price increased. Supply shock due to strikes. Sounds like price gouging to me.
You can’t really price gouge goods with elastic demand though, where demand rises and falls with the price. Luxury goods like streaming services even doubly so because they are in no way, shape, or form necessary things. If people pay the price for a luxury good that they don’t need, then by definition it’s a fair price.
Netflix isnt a necessity. Don’t like the price, don’t buy the service. It really is that simple.
Also, price gouging is only illegal in the US for necessities in declared civil emergencies.
Keyword here being:
Netflix is priced pretty evenly with every other streaming service and have been raising their prices steadily for the past few years. maybe if this was a one-time spike of like 200%, I’d agree with you (probably wouldn’t because I don’t believe luxury goods can be subject to price gouging), but this is just par for the course by now.
“Supply Shock” is not “oh no, now we have to pay writers a little more” or “we’ll have a couple fewer new shows in the next year,” it’s usually “the city’s water supply has been tainted and trucks aren’t able to get bottled water in as fast as before, now we can charge eight times as much for bottled water!” or “well, there was a hurricane that took out half the tomatoes in Italy, and for the next few weeks, the people who do have tomatoes have NYC Pizza shops by the balls.”
And the price increase usually isn’t a few dollars, but like, the prices doubling or tripling or more.