You're right that businesses might roll fees into the base price, but that’s the point: transparency. When all costs are upfront, customers can more easily compare prices between competitors. Hidden fees make price comparisons difficult and misleading.
Take airlines, for example—if one shows a $200 ticket and another shows $180 but sneaks in $30 of fees later, the second one appears cheaper. By requiring prices to reflect the full cost upfront, businesses compete on the actual price rather than deceptive practices. This won’t magically lower costs, but it will force clarity and reward companies offering genuine value.
Consumers should have a clear picture of what they’re paying, not a surprise at checkout. Isn’t that just fair competition?
There's still a lot of benefit to seeing the prices up front vs. fees which are added on later. It can be a frustrating experience to realize that something you think is affordable is significantly more expensive once you make it to the checkout screen.
For example, I've been booking a group trip lately, and I found that the sticker prices for some things didn't include many fees, so it was more of a hassle to actually get accurate quotes. At the same time, the companies which were providing these prices have an incentive to hide fees, because that's what all their competitors are doing – they have pressure to be competitive both at first glance and at checkout.
With a level playing field, these fees should be incorporated into the total price across competitors, allowing for easier cross-shopping. I'm excited to be more confident I can quote what I see initially vs. going through a checkout flow.
So which is better? Ticket price shows at a price of 100 dollars upon checkout you get a ton of fees and it balloons to 140 dollars. Or ticket price shows as 140 dollars you can choose to buy it at said price or not no surprises later in the checkout process.
If prices are perceived as high from the moment someone searches for it they may be more tempted to check elsewhere or opt out.
1. I'm not convinced by this argument, airlines compete on list price. If they can add a bunch of fees after winning on list price, they can move more and more of their costs into the fees and are no longer competing on the real price.
2. Let airlines compete on transparent pricing. I think this alone is enough of a benefit to this move.
I think airlines are a great example because the fees are often actually paying for something materially different.
When purchasing concert tickets recently I got a "mobile convenience fee" for an e-ticket even though the venue doesn't operate a physical box office. A recent hotel had a "resort fee" that was not opt-out even if you didn't use the amenities it allegedly paid for. These kinds of BS fees should go away.
Non-opt-out resort fees and facility fees and the like are especially annoying. They're also (presumably deliberately) a small enough portion of the total amount that they're not really worth getting into a big lather about.
I think we're agreeing. While a lot of airline fees are nickel-and-diming, they're also over and above transporting people from A to B, in many cases for as little money as they want to spend as possible.
I think that's all we want. To know the cost upfront so we can compare choices efficiently. We don't expect businesses to lower total cost, just be more cooperative and less exploitative in communicating it.
Ignoring your last sentence - I'm well aware. These changes increase price transparency and that's something we all benefit from. Junk fees are a way to exploit psychology and ignorance to extract more money out of consumers than they'd like to pay.
I'm okay with things being expensive - I'd prefer if they weren't but that's the way to the world - I'm not okay with things being expensive and companies advertising them at a far lower price.
That is fine because then someone decides to buy something based on what it costs. The status quo is that some company decides to backload the cost with hidden fees and then all competitors need to follow by doing the same or they will be "undercut". This is just bad for consumers because it makes it very hard to determine what they are paying for something and how to compare it with other prices.
A free market needs regulation to maintain competition. Companies dislike competition because it lowers profits, and will do what they can to avoid competing on a level playing field. Like adding hidden fees.
I think really there are two types of "free market" supporters.
The first is what you're arguing, a version that includes "free of monopolies" in the definition. A market full of competition. A market that has no choice but to serve their customers to the best they can because otherwise a competitor will take their customers.
The second are the anarcho-capitalists. They have the naive belief that corporations that do bad things will be punished by the market, making regulations unnecessary and stifling. To them, if one business is winning due to deceit, then the blame lies in the customer for being deceived. They think the decision that leads to the most profit is the best, side-effects be damned. They're insufferable and would gladly destroy the planet for an extra 5% profit on their quarterly reports.
Anarcho-capitalists are kooks. They're so emotionally attached to capitalism as an ideology, any criticisms or suggestions of its imperfection results in cognitive dissonance. They cannot have coherent conversations outside of a cult like hero worship of personalities like Ayn Rand (who cashed her Social Security checks anyway) and Joseph Gamabos, who weren't even the true believers the anarcho-capitalist cult today have become. Naive is a very charitable term for them.
I'd say it's stupidity. In the Dietrich Bonhöffer way of thinking. Stupidity in large numbers (perhaps tribalism), is a greater danger to good than evil.
