如今每次购物，我总觉得自己在花冤枉钱。我似乎从来都拿不到最优惠的券，而那些用算法动态调价的App，也并不会让我购物车里的东西变便宜。感觉价格一直在悄悄上涨，我的预算被越拉越紧。
I always feel like I’m overpaying whenever I buy something these days. I never seem to have access to the best coupons, and apps with algorithmically adjusted prices don’t exactly lower the cost of what's in my cart. It feels like prices are constantly creeping up and my budget is being stretched thin.
正是这些切身的挫败感，让我翻开了《被宰：公平价格的终结及其对你钱包的影响》这本书。作者林赛·欧文斯深知为消费者经济利益发声是什么滋味。她是华盛顿智库兼企业监督机构“基础工作协作组织”的首席执行官，此前还曾在参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦的办公室担任经济政策顾问。
These core frustrations were what drew me to Gouged: The End of a Fair Price and What That Means for Your Wallet. Author Lindsay Owens knows what it's like to advocate for consumers' economic interests. She’s the CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, a DC think tank and corporate watchdog, and previously worked as an economic policy adviser in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office.
在她的新书上市前，我们聊了聊软件如何在改变商品定价方式上发挥了关键作用，以及生成式AI可能如何让现有问题雪上加霜。欧文斯还和读者分享了几条建议，帮助大家把公平的价格争取回来。以下对话经过长度和清晰度编辑。
Before the launch of her book, available now, we spoke about how software has been instrumental in changing how goods are priced, and how generative AI could make existing issues worse. Owens also shared a couple of tips for readers who want to claw back a fair price. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
《连线》：商品和服务固定价格的时代，感觉已经是过去式了。我们是怎么走到今天这个价格如此多变的文化时刻的？
WIRED: The era of fixed prices for goods and services already feels like it's in the rearview mirror. How did we get to this current cultural moment where costs are so variable?
林赛·欧文斯：结果就是我们所有人都对固定价格有点太习以为常了。这个做法已经存在了150年，从19世纪末约翰·沃纳梅克在费城的百货商店里给商品贴上价签开始。也许我们只是想当然地以为这是一条法律，但它其实只是一种惯例。
Lindsay Owens: It turns out we all got a little too comfortable with the fixed price. We'd had it for 150 years, since John Wanamaker stuck a price tag on the items in his department store in Philadelphia in the late 1800s. Maybe we just assumed it was a law, but it was actually a norm.
这种惯例即便没有消失，也正在受到冲击。我认为公平价格终结的最大推手是新技术。当然，想多收钱的冲动一直都有，但新技术让这种冲动变得空前强大。大型科技公司重新发明了宰客这件事。它们把那些古老的冲动放大了，让几乎每一笔交易都能从美国人身上榨出更多钱。新技术是这一转变的基石。
It is under attack, if not gone. I think the biggest contributor to the end of a fair price is new technology. There was, of course, always an impetus to overcharge, but new technologies have supercharged that impulse. Big tech reinvented the rip-off. They supercharged these age-old impulses, and they made it possible to squeeze more out of Americans in almost every transaction. New technologies are the cornerstone of this shift.
今年早些时候，一个让我大开眼界的时刻，是我要求麦当劳提供所有基于我在其应用上互动而保存的数据。我收到了一份长达515页的档案，其中估计我永远不会停止做其顾客的概率为零。忠诚度应用会如何对人们支付的价格产生负面影响？
An eye-opening moment for me earlier this year was when I requested all the data McDonald's keeps based on my app interactions. I got a 515-page dossier that estimated a zero percent chance I'd ever stop being a customer. How can loyalty apps negatively impact what people pay?
忠诚度计划是精密的数据收集手段。我们大多数人都多少知道这一点。我们参与其中时就知道这有点像一场与魔鬼的交易。我们交出了大量数据，但这样做是为了换取与忠诚度挂钩的优惠和折扣承诺。结果发现，它们并没有履行自己那一端的承诺。
Loyalty programs are sophisticated data harvesting. Most of us kind of know that. We enter knowing it's a bit of a devil's bargain. We are giving up a lot of data, but we do it in exchange for the promise of deals and discounts tied to our loyalty. It turns out they're not holding up their end of the bargain.
2004年，杜克大学一位名叫柯蒂斯·泰勒的经济学家发表了一篇文章，提出一旦企业能够买卖顾客购买记录，会发生什么。他说，一旦忠诚度计划走向高科技，企业就会利用这些记录识别出最热衷的顾客，并向他们收取更高价格。其结果是，消费者会为自己的忠诚付出代价。我认为他的警告在今天依然成立。你能解释一下你说的“监控定价”是什么意思吗？
In 2004, a Duke economist named Curtis Taylor put out a piece asking what would happen once companies could buy and sell records of what shoppers purchased. He said that once loyalty programs go high-tech, firms will use those records to identify their most eager customers and charge them more. The effect was that consumers would pay a price for their loyalty. I think his warning rings true today. Could you explain what you mean by surveillance pricing?
监控定价是一种处于两件美国人最厌恶之事交汇点的技术：被算计和被宰。它是你在经济学课上可能学过的一个概念的通俗说法，叫个性化定价。这个理念是不再根据市场状况、也不再根据人口群体来改变价格。在一级价格歧视中，公司利用关于我个人的信息来决定并估算我的支付意愿。
Surveillance pricing is a technique that's at the intersection of two things Americans hate: getting preyed on and being ripped off. It’s a colloquialism for something you might have learned about in economics class called personalized pricing. This is the idea of changing prices not based on market conditions, not based on demographic groups. In first-degree price discrimination, the company uses information about me personally to decide and estimate my willingness to pay.
重要的是，支付意愿并不等同于支付能力。也许你急需某样东西——你是一位母亲，半夜里孩子生病了，你需要早上泰诺送到家门口。你可能有各种理由处于绝望之中。
Importantly, willingness to pay isn't the same thing as ability to pay. Maybe you need something urgently—you're a mom in the middle of the night with a sick kid, and you need Tylenol on your doorstep in the morning. There are all sorts of reasons why you might be desperate.
你前面提到，软件创新是这些变化的主要驱动力。你认为生成式人工智能正在加剧现有问题吗？
You mentioned earlier that software innovations are a major driver of these changes. Do you see generative AI as exacerbating existing issues?
当然。代理式商务目前尚未普及。我们正处于早期阶段，但预警信号已经闪现。沃尔玛表示，使用“Sparky”购物车的订单总额比未使用该功能的订单高出35%。这些新技术正在强化那些古老的营销手段，旨在向你追加销售、诱导你购买附加商品，并确保你当场买下商品，而不是明天再来。
Absolutely. Agentic commerce is not ubiquitous quite yet. We're in the early stages, but the early warning signs are flashing. Walmart says Sparky cart totals are 35 percent higher than non-Sparky cart totals. These new technologies are supercharging age-old impulses to upsell you, to get you to purchase an add-on, to make sure you leave with the item instead of coming back tomorrow.
人工智能代理通常被宣传为可以帮助自动化在线购物决策的工具。这种将决策权外包的行为，还可能以哪些方式对消费者产生反噬？
AI agents are often marketed as tools that can help automate your online shopping decisions. How else could this kind of outsourcing of decisionmaking backfire for consumers?
我们正处于一个转折点。我们可以迅速采取行动进行监管，要求这些代理像经济活动中的其他代理一样，以消费者的利益为出发点开展工作。
We're at an inflection point. We can quickly move to regulate this and require agents to work in consumers' interests, as other agents in our economy work in consumers' interests.
你的房产经纪人必须代表你的利益。你的律师则有最佳利益标准，在某些情况下甚至负有受托责任。
Your realtor has to work on your behalf. Your lawyer has a best-interest standard or a fiduciary standard even in some cases.
生活成本和负担能力危机让美国人的生活举步维艰。这些新技术让消费和购物变得令人疲惫。一旦你想象一下还要时刻提防“江湖骗子”的推销，你就会意识到，消费模式即将发生彻底的改变。
The cost of living and affordability crisis is making life hard for Americans. These new technologies are making consuming and shopping exhausting. Once you imagine layering in fighting off a snake oil salesman, then you realize consuming is about to be completely different.
在美国，你认为禁止监控定价的法律会主要在州一级出现，还是联邦决策者会更多地介入？
In the US, do you see laws banning surveillance pricing happening primarily on the state level, or will federal decisionmakers get more involved?
目前两者兼而有之。我曾担任沃伦参议员的幕僚，最近还就此问题代表乔什·霍利参议员作证。因此，我认为这是一个跨党派的问题。
It's a little of both, right now. I worked for Senator Warren as a staffer, and I just testified on behalf of [Senator] Josh Hawley on this issue. So, I think this issue is a nonpartisan one.
显然，联邦层面的推动需要很长时间；州一级的动作更多。今年我们已经看到数十项旨在打击监控定价和算法定价的立法。其中一些已经在康涅狄格州、新泽西州和马里兰州等地获得通过并签署成为法律。
Obviously, federal momentum takes a long time; there's been more movement at the state level. We've seen dozens of pieces of legislation to crack down on surveillance and algorithmic pricing this year. Some of it has passed and been signed into law in states like Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maryland.
我该如何应对监控定价？即使这可能像西西弗斯推石上山一样徒劳，我还能尝试哪些策略？
How can I beat surveillance pricing? What strategies can I try, even if it's a Sisyphean effort?
我发自内心地认为，不应该要求每一位消费者都去闪躲腾挪、费尽心思地与这套机制博弈。当然，还是有一些反击的方法，比如致电国会议员。听着，我认为发出自己的声音很重要。
From the bottom of my heart, I do not believe it is every consumer's job to duck and dodge and bob and weave and beat the machine. There are some ways to fight back, like calling members of Congress. Look, I think raising your voice is important.
此外，还有几种尝试获得更优惠价格的方法。第一种是改变你的比价方式。你不能只在不同品牌之间进行比价，还必须在同一品牌内部进行比价：登录状态与未登录状态对比，应用程序与网站对比，以及线上与实体店对比。或许你还可以使用虚拟专用网络（VPN）来切换地理位置？这些都是针对同一家公司的同一件商品，通过不同方式进行比价的手段。
In addition, there are a handful of ways to try to get a better deal. The first is to change the way you comparison shop. You can't just comparison shop across brands; you have to compare within brands: logged in versus logged out, in the app versus on the website versus in the brick-and-mortar store. Maybe you also change geographies using a VPN? These are all ways to comparison shop the same item from the same company but in different modalities.
第二点是，他们通过对我们进行实验来计算出可以多收我们多少钱。我的组织曾揭露了 Instacart 的大规模实验，他们在数百万美国人不知情的情况下，将其当作小白鼠进行 A/B 测试。你可以反过来对他们进行测试。给你的朋友打电话，让他们打开应用程序，看看谁能拿到更优惠的价格。你甚至可以让对方下单购买，然后通过 Venmo 转账。和你的配偶坐在一起，同时查看机票价格。
The second thing is they figure out how much they can overcharge us by experimenting on us. My organization exposed Instacart's massive experiment treating millions of Americans as guinea pigs without their knowledge in A/B tests. You can turn the experiment back on them. Call your friend. Ask them to fire up their app. See who gets a better deal. You can even have them purchase it, and Venmo each other. Sit next to your spouse, and both look at plane tickets.
这些都是有用的工具，但当你使用这些建议时，你也失去了一些同样宝贵的东西：你的时间。这些都是耗时耗力的工作，而我们的时间很宝贵。事实上，美国企业界也在榨干这一点，这着实令人沮丧。
These are useful tools, but when you use these suggestions, you lose something that is also valuable: your time. These are time-intensive efforts, and our time is valuable. The fact that corporate America is also sucking that dry is pretty frustrating.