Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/24/mastercards-ai-spies-on-you-jacks-up-prices-ftc-finally-investigates-surveillance-pricing.html
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Yes. Their whole business is trying to find ways to make you spend more money. Always has been.
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This is interesting but I am not sure how it works. Presumably only for online shopping, and MC shares it’s insights with the vendor to nudge up (or down?) prices to make you buy?
I rarely buy much. I research online, then visit trusted local suppliers. Specialty stuff online, sure, but otherwise local unless the price differential is astounding. Bought a mandolin today at Gourmet Warehouse in Vancouver. Hoo-ee! that Thing is amazing! Did zooks, onion and mushrooms in a minute.
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This sentence confused me at first.
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This sent me down a rabbit hole, because I started wondering…why is it called a mandolin slicer? And your gif shows why. It’s named that because the movement of your hand when using one looks like that. So the slicer is named after the musical instrument.
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I’d only ever seen it spelled w/an E at the end.
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Cory covered the details:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/
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That was the guy who helped me! How did you know?!
I don’t know how he has any fingernails left. Or fingers. (I now know that it comes with a safety device thingy.)
ETA
I thought so too. But I’ve mostly given up fighting spell check. Except colour because it is so much more colourful. And neighbour because it so much more neighbourly. And labour because it takes so much more effort to spell.
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The safety thing is pants, get a chainmail glove.
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According to Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster, it’s the same word, with or without the e at the end. Mandoline is the usual spelling in the UK of the kitchen slicer. In the US, we drop the e because the word really does come from the musical instrument, which is not spelled with an e at the end. Maybe the British are using the e to distinguish between the two?
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Mom bought German ones, so maybe it’s a generally European spelling, too.
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Given the origin of the instrument I can guess why:
Mandolino/a (italy) → Mandoline (france) → Mandoline (UK original spelling) → Mandolin (English modern spelling)
Also, the kitchen mandoline is also from “french” (depending on your views about Alsace being french) origin. I have a similar model to the XIX alsacian ones, that I use to slice cabbages and lettuces.
ETA: I would add the idea is not new, and I’m pretty sure the japanese katsuobushi shaver is a lot older, but most people I know seem to point to the “mandoline a bois” as the precursor of the modern one 
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That makes sense, except I haven’t had coffee this morning and I just realized I got something backwards. For the slicer, mandoline is the typical spelling in the US, while mandolin is more common in the UK. At least according to Wikipedia. Which, you know…grain of salt. Let’s just give it an original name and avoid this problem all together. I propose…fingertip slicer offer.
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I’m disappointed that Amazon isn’t included because they’re a giant in the marketplace and have long engaged in a related practice. (On top of all their other monopolistic and other exploitative practices)
Based on what they know about their customers (and they obviously know a lot) they will provide different results for search queries, showing you the most expensive and profitable options that they believe that you’re likely to purchase. Two people doing the exact same search for headphones or whatever will not be seeing the same options, and even if you do an extremely specific, tailored search for a product it can be very hard to find the specific product/seller that you’re looking for if that’s not one of the ones that Amazon is trying to get you to buy.
A little while back Adam Conover was interviewing someone about Amazon and he explained that it’s even worse than the old days of having a single company-owned store in a factory town. Those stores may have been monopolies, but at least everyone could clearly see the same products available on the shelves, and everyone paid the same prices for those products.
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I’m now thoroughly confused and will STFU.
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You probably shouldn’t be operating a mandolin(e) then.
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Why? It’ll all works out in the end.
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Oh, I don’t. The thing terrifies me.
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Thank you. A very good read. I see lots of us went there.
My question still isn’t answered. Perhaps the FTC doesn’t know yet. It just reads weird as it sounds like MC is now the vendor. Maybe something like a concierge or a personal shopper that thinks it knows me really well.
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You’re not thinking markety enough, “the Anonymizer (and vegetable slicer)” or maybe “DigitSlimmer”
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