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Car makers like Jaguar Land Rover and Peugeot have been accused of using special software to raise spare parts prices.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/04/car-makers-used-software-to-raise-spare-parts-prices/
Ever had the nagging suspicion that your car's manufacturer was charging outrageous prices for parts simply because it could? Software might be to blame. Reuters has obtained documents from a lawsuit indicating that Jaguar Land Rover, Peugeot, Renault and other automakers have been using Accenture software (Partneo) that recommended price increases for spare parts based on "perceived value." If a brand badge or other component looked expensive, Partneo would suggest raising the price up to a level that drivers would still be willing to pay. It would even distinguish parts based on whether or not there was "pricing supervision" over certain parts (say, from insurance companies or focused publications) to avoid sparking an outcry.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:32PM (4 children)
... says somebody who I'm reasonably certain has never tried to acquire startup capital. I mean, have you ever walked into the offices of, say, Goldman Sachs, and said "I have a great idea for a business, can I have $100 billion?" Yeah, I didn't think so.
And here's the biggest barrier to getting the startup capital you completely left out of your considerations: Your most likely sources of startup capital are going to have to be very rich, because this is a business with a high capital cost. Said sources are quite likely to be invested in one of the 3 players in this oligopoly. That investment means that they want the gravy train to continue unabated, because they're getting some of that gravy.
If you want empirical evidence that oligopolies are inefficient, just look at the shareholder reports of players in the major oligopolies today. If all market players are reporting high profit margins then the market is inefficient, because those high profits come from charging a lot more for the product in question than it costs to produce it. Or you can examine markets where the price of a product has increased substantially without any significant increase in the costs of production.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:41PM
You are asking for WAY too much critical thinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @11:31PM (1 child)
That's not how it works. How much capital were youtube or github blowing through before acquisition? How much is twitter blowing through now and what exactly is twitters business model?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 06 2018, @01:38PM
All your examples are relatively low-capital businesses, where they could and did release their product to the market after spending a few million at most. Modern examples of the businesses I'm talking about are much more complex than that, like designing and manufacturing microchips or nationwide cell phone coverage.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @12:56AM
Google had no problem raising capital to go against microsoft when it owned 90% of the browser market and people were talking abut having to get the government to step in and fix the situation.