For anyone who sees the title and thinks "what's wrong with using algorithms to price things?" - The problem is not inherently the use of algorithms. The problem is that it's a disguised collusion between market players.

Matt Stoller runs a great blogsite/newsletter focusing on anti-trust issues like this. Here are a few more articles for the interested:

- https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-price-fixing-economy

- https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-banality-of-price-fix...

- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/2...

> Airfares have only risen since that settlement, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve. (ATPCO cited a study showing inflation-adjusted fares falling, released by the lead trade group for the airlines.)

If you follow the link you can see that in fact they have gone up and down some (more up than down) and they have indeed risen below inflation. Not sure why one would expect anything better than this?

afaik in australia this defo happens in the petrol industry and increasingly in real estate where the worst offenders simply shrug and say "its not our fault its the algorithm responding to market forces". so fake.

I care less about prices these days and more about the planes being flown. Near impossible to avoid newer Boeings

You could see both issues as consequences of shareholder capitalism.

It happens under any system where power gets centralized eventually including socialism. It just happens much faster in socialist systems because power is centralized from the start.