Nabeel Siddiqi @nabsidd

Dynamic pricing done right is socialism got consumers and capitalism for businesses. The best of both worlds. Of course, the important bit is "done right." A great article in the Boston Herald about the benefits of dynamic pricing for consumers: bostonherald.com/2026/05/23/bha… There are of course ways for businesses to abuse dynamic pricing but banning it all together means that you end up excluding underprivileged groups.

Many states are starting to ban surveillance pricing. But what's the difference between dynamic pricing, surge pricing, personalized pricing and surveillance pricing? In dynamic pricing prices change over time, but at one moment all customers get the same price. Usually, the prices change based on market forces ie supply and demand. Surge pricing is a type of dynamic pricing that is influenced by the supply available at a given point in time. In surveillance pricing, prices change often, like dynamic pricing but the difference is that at any moment two different customers can be charged different prices. This happens because the input to the pricing is not only market forces but also personal information of the customer. Hence, if you login to a website from a wealthy neighborhood using the latest model iPhone there's a good chance you will get charged more than someone else coming from a poorer neighborhood with a cheaper phone. Personalized pricing is similar in that it uses personal data, but not to set regular prices but to send personal offers and discounts. This means in personalized pricing you cannot be charged more because you seem wealthy but you can be given a discount if you seem like you're about to not buy or don't seem like you can afford it, etc. So, what should consumers do and how should shop owners act? For consumers: if you think a shop is using surveillance pricing then try using a VPN to change your location and use a different browser. For shop owners: surveillance pricing is inherently unfair to customers. Don't do it. On the other hand, dynamic pricing can actually increase your market share, revenue, conversion rates and customer satisfaction if implemented correctly. Amazon changes prices millions of times a day but consumers don't complain about their pricing. So, how should you implement dynamic pricing in your shop? That's for another day.

"If all of the airlines start doing personalized pricing... then the chances of collusion increase radically, and that's a risk that I would imagine most airlines are not willing to take." PricePerfectAI CEO Nabeel Siddiqi on Delta's new AI ticket pricing.

The AI ticking time bomb is BS. This is why. The AI ticking time bomb is a prediction that AI foundation model providers will increase prices and then all the AI businesses and use cases will no longer work. But that's not how it will unfold. As soon as OpenAI or Anthropic increase prices people will start turning to open source. The models aren't as good (yet) but the harness and agentic tooling is comparable. So, the doom and gloom predictions aren't going to happen because the substitutes are not that far behind.

The problem isn't dynamic pricing. It's dynamic pricing that only ever seems to go one way.

When demand is soft, well-calibrated dynamic pricing should push prices down — clearing inventory and attracting buyers who wouldn't pay full price. The family flying Tuesday instead of Friday. The guest booking 3 weeks out instead of 3 days. Real discounts. The system working.

Everyone blames "surge pricing." But surge pricing and dynamic pricing aren't the same thing — and conflating them leads to bad takes, bad policy, and bad decisions. The distinction matters more than you think. Here's why 🧵

Hot take: digital price tags in grocery stores are good for consumers. Yes, they enable dynamic pricing. No, that's not the same as surge pricing. Grocery is insanely competitive. You have Walmart, Costco, Aldi, Kroger all within a few miles of each other. Nobody is going to risk losing your $200/week grocery run to squeeze an extra 50 cents out of you on eggs. What they will do: mark down expiring food faster, match competitor prices in real time, and eliminate checkout pricing errors. Plus — price gouging laws already exist. This isn't the Wild West. The real story here isn't "stores can raise prices faster." It's "stores can LOWER prices faster."

@VirginAtlantic Saaga continues, we asked to be booked on an @emirates filght EK30/510 but we're told sorry, can't do it, even though I can buy tickets right now... But they aren't willing to reimburse... Virgin, you disappoint me

@VirginAtlantic made us stand in line for 2 hours in the cold in London, put all the South Asian flights in the corner of Terminal 3, and then told us "Oops we've sold all the seats"...

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