iamnotemilio t1_isp639f wrote on October 17, 2022 at 5:43 PM

The role of any actor in a market is to maximize their profits to the extent that the market allows. This market analysis software is not even a little surprising, large institutional landlords have been doing this for years. The software is not the problem, the market itself is for allowing one of the most essential human needs to be treated like a faceless profit making commodity.

plugsie t1_issqqmu wrote on October 18, 2022 at 1:03 PM

Sure, but there are limits. Few markets are truly free, and whether by regulation or human social norms, limits can have benefits without asking any vendors to suffer. As the article explains, reasonable people with expertise see this as price-fixing. Just because the data is anonymized doesn’t mean it isn’t being shared between competitors.

The other issue is that housing is not a widget. It has particular social and public health facets that impact us all. This algorithm is encouraging landlords to rent fewer units overall at a higher rate, leaving some empty in the interest of more money overall. That doesn’t seem like a choice that is necessarily in a society’s interest to encourage or allow at scale or without limit.