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What do you think of Internet outrage of companies raising their prices, chiefly companies like Netflix and fast food restaurants? I think morally, it seems pretty iffy- it's a free market, and if they raise their prices, you can just stop buying what they offer. If the government got involved to set any sort of price ceiling, I think that'd definitely be a bad idea that'd lead to a shortage of some sort.
But if the outrage lets customers act as a pseudo-monopsony which gives them more power, I also don't really mind if they're able to use it to demand cheaper prices, even if I think the accusations of corporations being evil are vastly overblown. Especially when it comes to keeping the price of something like Netflix low, where much of their value comes from having exclusive rights to stream old shows and movies instead of all revenue to them going towards making new stuff or improving technology. If consumer outrage keeps the Netflix price $5 cheaper than it otherwise would be, is anything hurt besides shareholder bank accounts?
Media companies and fast food companies are pretty dissimilar, and it seems like different things are going on.
I feel fairly hostile toward media companies in general right now, and am sort of rooting for Netflix's price hikes and making households smaller and nearer to result in mass loss of subscriptions, even if it destroys the company and they cease to exist. But then I haven't paid for Netflix (or Disney+, despite having daughters who love Disney shows) for years. But that doesn't mean that it's a moral issue, exactly.
Fast food companies do seem to be genuinely struggling with high price and low quality labor costs, especially, and things are what they are for them. Which doesn't mean I'll keep buying their food, of course. At some point I'll pack my own sandwiches for road trips, though that point is not quite reached. Today we were on a short road trip, deciding between fast food and a local Asian buffet. We went with the buffet, partly because we wanted it more, but partly because it was only about $5 - $10 more for four people than the fast food. It's not wrong for Sonic to cost as much as a good buffet. I'm not outraged. I just don't really eat there anymore. I'm not in the least worried that America will run out of reasonably convenient places to eat, so it's not really a problem if a bunch of fast food chains end up going out of business. There's nothing special, wonderful, and irreplaceable about Wendy's, even if it's slightly less convenient to have to plan a trip to a grocery store for food ahead of time.
Do you think there's anything immoral or counterproductive about the act of consumers raging against corporations for raising prices instead of just quietly changing their spending habits? Or is it a good idea, even if part of the momentum of the rage is driven by falsehoods about corporate greed instead of inflation?
It's probably a waste of time and emotional energy? If all the consumers rage and Netflix lowers the price a bit or lets geographically separated family members share accounts again, that's fine, I suppose. If there are that many people invested in using Netflix specifically, they can go ahead and wrangle over it. If viewers are very firm about not wanting to spend money on, for instance, a $120 million live action remake of Avatar the Last Airbender, then maybe they will comply. If people want that, I can't really tell. Maybe someday a YouTuber complaining about how lame Disney's new streaming show is will get more views than the actual show, and they will take action to make less lame shows (or at least not raise prices to fund the lame shows). I'm not betting on it, though. But the interaction is legitimate enough.
The Wendy's happy hours/surge pricing thing seems a bit silly, but if consumers would really prefer a small price hike all day long to a larger one at specific times, it might be worth letting the company know. And complaining on the internet and to reporters is one way to let them know, likely more effective than complaining to the workers at their local store, anyway. It's probably basically useless to complain about fast food price increases in general, since any given restaurant is pretty low margin and probably unable to lower costs.
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