Can we trust you? Digital platform.

INFS6016 Week 5 Digital Business Model Reflection | Session 4 Digital Platform 2

This week delved into the expansive possibilities of functions to digital platforms, with two facets seizing my attention: dynamic pricing and user-controlled curation.

Upon the introduction of dynamic pricing during our workshop, I grappled with discerning its relationship to price discrimination. Indeed, prices fluctuate, mirroring the ebb and flow of demand and supply. Yet, the crux resides in the underlying algorithm.

( The picture shows on chinese version of trip.com that the same room with different price on different phones )

(Trip.com was A court in eastern Zhejiang province’s Shaoxing ruled that Trip.com engaged in price discrimination https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3141264/tripcom-ordered-make-exception-privacy-policy-lawsuit-could-open-door)

My experience with 'Trip.com' (or '携程XIECHENG' in China) resurfaced, recalling an instance where my mother and I procured a same flight tickets, but only my fare was found priced lower. Then Carol corrected me that while dynamic pricing harnesses intricate techniques, it’s different from traditional price discrimination. However, I still think businesses may perceive this as a potent tool for price modulation, mounting concerns emerge.

(Even our lecture slides alluded to potential pitfalls.)

Though I know dynamic pricing doesn’t represent price discrimination, price discrimination still can be produced by dynamic pricing, and it could go wrong in user's trust for digital platforms. For example, Professor Sun Jinyun of Fudan University took Chinese ride-hailing app 800 times, spending nearly 50,000 yuan, confirming that big data targets longtime customers for higher prices.

(Chinese version of discussion in ZHIHU https://www.zhihu.com/question/447061249)(English version https://kr-asia.com/researchers-took-over-800-trips-using-chinese-ride-hailing-apps-heres-what-they-found)

So, I still think dynamic pricing is something we really need to think about how to build trust on it.

Next, If dynamic pricing is an ‘untrust climax’, then user-controlled curation is a ‘fake trust window’ in a custom-sealed chamber (Platform): it provides brief respite, but just a few meters away lies an odorous, unenclosed public toilet.

Such an analogy is evoked when considering the superficial nature of the 'control' often granted to users. For instance, Facebook's option to hide ads is merely a typical fake trust window.

( Right click on the ad from Facebook )

Imagine that, I was already exposed to the ad, why should I exert effort to close it, when a simple scroll could have sufficed. If I chose to close the ad, I needed to look at the ad again and click it to hide it. It made me sick that I even needed to pay more attention to close the ad. So, what’s the meaning of this type of control? Do I really trust it? No.

It leads me to reflect on a glaring quandary with digital platforms: the palpable artifice and insincerity they often exude. Crafting a truly trustworthy platform remains an unresolved challenge. To simply make your users feel that they’re in control is not enough, and even at this point, Facebook still failed it. I don’t feel in control at all. And the dynamic pricing sounds fancy but it is used by businesses to do dirty work.

So, can we trust digital platforms? or can I trust myself if I’m going to build a digital platform?