<story><title>The coming retail apocalypse: some axioms</title><url>http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/12/the-coming-retail-apocalypse-s.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>zipdog</author><text>This might be relevant:&lt;p&gt;In Scott Adams&apos; The Dilbert Future (1997), he introduced the word confusopoly. The word is a portmanteau of confusion and monopoly (or rather oligopoly), defining it as &quot;a group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price&quot;. Examples of industries in which confusopolies exist (according to Adams) include telephone service, insurance, mortgage loans, banking, and financial services. [from wiki]&lt;p&gt;The central idea is that if companies made it easy to compare their products, then those companies would be forced in to a detrimental competition on price. So instead, if each company offers a slightly different package, with different feautres and prices, then simple comparison doesn&apos;t exist.</text></comment>
<story><title>The coming retail apocalypse: some axioms</title><url>http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/12/the-coming-retail-apocalypse-s.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mechanical_fish</author><text>Airline ticket pricing is not a good general example: The airlines get away with arcane pricing in part because they have successfully outlawed arbitrage by prohibiting the resale or transfer of tickets away from the original buyer, in the name of &quot;security&quot;.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m dubious that this practice is going to work so well for, say, socks. There is no law against trading socks on the secondary market.</text></comment>