cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50434194
Proton VPN’s pricing page exposed an ab-test identifier linked to two VPN Plus prices: €2.99/month (70% off) and €3.49/month (65% off). Repeated testing produced B → A → B → A → B, with the variant matching the rendered price each time. €12 difference over 24 months.
TL;DR Proton ran an A/B test for their mid-tier vpn pricing.
Introductory pricing specifically, not their regular pricing.
Way back when, the observed ABAB sequence could be explained by one server using outdated data and another having the new data and visitors being round-robined to each in turn. I have investigated issues like this and this has happened. Not sure how many companies still use a setup like this, though. It’s been K8s clusters everywhere I’ve worked for many years now. This does indeed look like a proper AB test, the HTML already looks pretty clear.
Happens all the time with GitHub Actions when they update runner images. According to Microsoft, it’s “fundamentally unfixable”.
Yeah and what’s worse is Proton denying AB testing and instead claiming that it was a promo pricing
denying the undeniable, they think we are tech illiterate fools. disgusting. is that why they left their fediverse accounts with anger? that users were pointing out lies?
They didn’t. They are active in Mastodon.
oh they came back in February. they were inactive before that for a year, shortly after the republican drama
This article could have been several times shorter.
Seriously, it’s like a middle school writing assignment to reach 5 pages, but worse.
Put a Tl;dr at the top for me, and you can be as autistically thorough as you want to be.
Probably AI generated
With the amount of ads it feels more like it’s purposefully made longer to increase ad revenue
I agree except you can’t have something be “several times shorter”. Yes, I know what you mean, but “several times” can only be longer. It’s like saying “500% less”. You can’t do that. The best case scenario is that means “20% of the original” but arguably “500% less” would mean you take five times the original amount and subtract it from the original, leaving you with negative 4 times the amount, not twenty percent.
Anyway. This is just a light-hearted pedantic pseudo-rant, although I also do stand by the truth of what I’m saying. But I’m not intending corrections, just being silly about a pet peeve of mine. heh
hmm… that article might be better off being -4 times its original length, come to that. heh
I disagree. Twice as short would be half the length if you asked me (same as twice as long, in a glass half empty, half full situation).
In a similar but different example, if you have a 1000 word essay and you cut it to 500 words, you could make it twice as short again by cutting it to 250 words.
That’s because you wrote something different than the other comment.
Twice as short != twice shorter
And the second version is just wrong.
I don’t understand twice shorter – how would you use it in context?
I think my example stands
OK, either I don’t understand you or you don’t understand me, because that’s what I’m also saying?
Your example “twice as short” works.
The original comment wasn’t about your example.
The original comment was “several times shorter”.
As you used twice in place of several times, I also put twice in there to make the difference to yours more obvious.
Twice shorter isnt the same as twice as short. You talked in your first comment about something different than the other comments talked about. That is what I wanted to express.
Language is generally workable if it communicates the intended message. In that sense, I acknowledge that it is generally understood what something means, but not always.
However, it is semantic gibberish, and fuck anyone who supports that gibberish.
But yes, it’s fine enough in the same way that when someone says “could of” we know they meant “could’ve” or “could have”. It doesn’t make it correct. And it is still grating.
Two asshats disagreed with my comment above enough to downvote. This is also grating because it means they actively support WRONG. And it is WRONG.
It’s fine, but it is irritating when people are willfully ignorant.
Could of is gibberish, i agree with you there.
But making something twice as short makes perfect sense to me. However short it is now, make it half that size.
What is the confusion?
Is this article AI generated? It seems to wander and repeat itself instead of being well-structured like a standard three-part article (background, analysis, conclusion).
Whether the poor quality was a result of humans or machines, it still leaves me wondering “who cares, why does this matter?” A/B testing, including on pricing, is a standard practice. (But usually you keep it consistent per person instead of switching back and forth. If a refresh gets them a cheaper price, they’ll do it and spoil your data.)
Is this article AI generated? It seems to wander and repeat itself instead of being well-structured like a standard three-part article (background, analysis, conclusion).
It very much is. The same user has also been systematically sharing content from this blog across half a dozen communities.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a bot.
another user claims they were denying AB testing being used for the prices
Yet again Lemmy shows that much of the userbase is young and has little general knowledge. A/B testing is quite standard, and there is nothing shady about testing different prices to see what consumers will purchase more.
A couple of times I’ve been walking in a mall (dating this anecdote back a couple of decades or so. heh) and got asked to participate in product testing where I was shown - in the case I remember better - two cans of soda with different designs. Strawberry soda - one pink can, one red can - which one I was more likely to purchase.
A/B testing is quite common as companies figure out how to sell you more. Assuming it’s randomized, it’s completely ethical.
and got asked to participate
Key difference here.
Do you normally participate in how companies set their pricing? No.
Do companies update their pricing? All the time.
All you don’t like is random people paying different prices. It’s not unethical, it is normal business practice, whether you are ignorant of it or not.
Something being normal business practice doesn’t make it ethical.
I mean I agree that AB testing is normal, and not really anything to start clutching your pearls about.
Yet again Lemmy shows that much of the userbase is young and has little general knowledge.
But this is a pretty patronising statement, mate.
edit: too long of a reply, nobody cares as much as I wrote. Thank you for feedback. I humbly disagree, but appreciated anyway.
Ethical would be for them to look at all their Capex. Opex and charge a healthy 20% profit on top. And if they can’t survive. Fold shop and do something else. A/B testing randomised or not, simply sees customers to be squeezed.
Who gets to decide the exact profit margin all companies must stick to?
Can someone articulate what is wrong with this? It intrinsically feels wrong to me, but when I think about it I dont really have any good reasoning why this would be bad.
We expect a standard price and it feels bad when we find out someone else got it cheaper.
But the consumer should be operating the same, they review the deal and if its a price they are willing to pay they go through with it.
It’s because despite what economists believe, prices are not determined fairly by the market but are dictated supply-side. So this kind of “testing” is one of the more blatant ways in which consumer trust is violated in the name of maximizing profits. It makes it obvious that you’re not paying a fair price for a service or product, but a price that was dictated for someone else’s convenience without taking your interests into account at all, violating the social contract.
IF the testing was purely random assignment of price points to gauge the markets ability to support a higher price, I think that is capitalism operating normally.
Now, on the other side, if the pricing changes were based on using the customers own data and spending habits to determine what a specific customer could be squeezed for, it is unacceptable and should be boycotted.
“Capitalism operating normally” is often unacceptable as well. This is one such case. At best, they screw over a few people with no public backlash. There should be backlash.
You’re not wrong! Life is a nightmare. It’s really sad that my metric nowadays for right and wrong is mostly whether or not the business is actively spying on me to find out how many pennies they can squeeze out of me.
the standard price expectation is how it tricks the customer, if you open a webpage and go pay for something then you expect that the price you’re paying from the same vendor is set the same for everyone (or at least constant for your geographic location to accomodate for purchasing power). pretty much no customer would expect opening the page in another session to offer a better price, which is why they did it this way.
if people knew there’s a better price available, they’d not take the worse deal. and people in general don’t like having tricks pulled on them, especially if they’re meant to gauge how much they can get away with charging you.
I was posting about these kind proton pricing shenanigans months ago and no one was listening.
I’ve always said Proton feels like they just can’t wait to be Google. I don’t trust them at all.
Never put my trust in proton, remember, they aren’t non-profit at the core!
I have cookies blocked, and have uBlock Origin on, there are no prices at all when I go to the Proton page. What a sketchy company.
Same thing here but prices show up normally. Idk what’s going on in your case.
