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londons_exploreyesterday at 2:39 PM1 replyview on HN

This only happens if a small percentage of people have live pricing. If most people have live pricing, most people have an incentive to act on price changes - for example by turning the heating off in unused rooms to save money.

In turn, that means that at times of crisis, prices will be high, but not 1000x high.

Gasoline is another resource with live pricing, and suggesting "I want a subscription where I pay $3 per gallon fixed for a year, no matter how much I use and no matter what happens to the price of oil" wouldn't be something a fuel station would entertain, because they know that when the price was under $3 you'd buy elsewhere, and when the price was over $3 you'd buy millions of gallons and resell at a profit.


Replies

HWR_14yesterday at 3:11 PM

> If most people have live pricing, most people have an incentive to act on price changes

It's not latency free to act on price changes. If they spike while people are asleep, what do you expect would happen? And would people get a notification everytime the price changed at all. The logistics are hard.

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