Surge pricing is something that anyone who takes a ride share on a regular basis has become used to. Try calling an Uber or Lyft on a rainy day during the dinner hour or around the school pick-up or drop-off time and you’ll be paying more than your usual rate — sometimes a lot more. Yet when consumers are confronted with common online business models like “dynamic pricing” in the bricks-and-mortar world, they may revolt. Consider the recent consumer backlash after Wendy’s, the American fast-food chain, announced on an earnings call that they were considering surge pricing for burgers during peak demand — and had invested $20mn in new AI systems to do so.
任何經常叫網約車的人都已經習慣了峰時定價。試一下在下雨天的晚餐時間或學校接送時間叫一輛優步(Uber)或Lyft的車，你會付比平時更多的錢，有時甚至是多很多。然而，當消費者在實體世界中面對“動態定價”這樣的常見線上商業模式時，他們可能會反抗。想想最近美國快餐連鎖店Wendy's招致的消費者的強烈反對吧，起因是該公司在一次財報電話會議上宣布，他們正在考慮在需求高峰期間對漢堡進行峰時定價，并為此投資了2000萬美元研發新的人工智能系統。