"But I'm curious, how would you suggest businesses handle the lost revenue from banned surcharges without raising prices?"
By keeping prices the same as they are. The current price is the price the customer pays at the end of the day. By making that the advertised price, the revenue per purchase is completely unchanged. Additionally, studies have shown that hidden fees turn customers off and are ineffective. Therefore, sales should increase for compliant businesses as well. If anything gross revenue would increase due to increased sales.
As a libertarian, I understand that you see government intervention as both a moral and practical wrong. There is force implicated, which could be seen as doing wrong. However, this is a simplistic view of ethics. It weighs only the moral cost of an action without considering its return on investment. By regulating certain aspects of the economy based on sound reasoning and research, the economy can function more efficiently and have a greater benefit on society. By and large, free markets operate more efficiently than command economies. However, there practically exist no examples of either, because they are both impossible, and a market which is mostly free can be helped to operate better through specific interventions. Similarly, by and large, a person is healthy without drugs. However, there are cases where drugs or medical interventions improve health (often these cases are more rare than our profit-motivated medical system might have you believe). In any case, none of these appearing false equivalencies are presented by me to prove anything to you, simply to provide a background for understanding the crux of my real argument which is as follows: advertising the final cost of an item or service limits temporal inefficiency in the economy. Temporal inefficiency is a topic rarely discussed in politics. The cost of any societal standard must include its opportunity cost, which can be measured in man hours multiplied by the difference in benefit of that activity… Read more
@L1beralMackerelLibertarian8mos8MO
You make an interesting point about the temporal inefficiency caused by the time spent dealing with hidden fees and tips. However, I would like to challenge your assumption that removing these would lead to a significant increase in productivity.
First, while the time spent on dealing with these fees and tips may seem large in aggregate, it's important to remember that it's spread out over a large number of people and transactions. In the grand scheme of things, the time each individual person spends dealing with these issues is relatively small. This time might be considered a… Read more
@9FDPB3L8mos8MO
"First, while the time spent on dealing with these fees and tips may seem large in aggregate, it's important to remember that it's spread out over a large number of people and transactions. In the grand scheme of things, the time each individual person spends dealing with these issues is relatively small. This time might be considered a minor inconvenience, but I question whether it really has a significant impact on overall productivity."
I am not concerned with "productivity" as an abstract concept. I am specifically interested in the production of happiness.… Read more