Legal Commentary

Firms Prefer Suckers

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

Source: Office Depot Associates Routinely Lie about Notebook Stock reports that if you don’t want the overpriced add-ons and warranties, that notebook is suddenly going to be out of stock.

What I’m wondering is whether (1) this stuff has always been going on; or (2) it’s a result of improved information technology, which makes micro-monitoring of sales and profits easy; or (3) it’s due to the recession.

If it is an information technology thing, then presumably consumers should be able to fight back with counter-information, but that seems like a terribly wasteful pair of transactions, a real Prisoner’s Dilemma result as regards efficiency.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on March 16, 2009 (boomark / email).