If rental cars, hotel rooms, airfares, ride-share trips and concert tickets have anything in common, it’s certainly not the overwhelming confidence Americans feel when booking and buying them. Prices for these kinds of purchases fluctuate from one minute to the next—or, in many cases, from buyer to buyer. It’s not that fair prices don’t exist, but it can be impossible to feel sure that you’re getting one. You have no idea what anyone else might be paying for the same flight or seat or midsize sedan, or what you might have paid yesterday or could pay tomorrow. The possibility that you’re being taken for a fool (or outright discriminated against) looms every time you click “Buy.”
Put another way, no regular person has ever sat back and thought, “You know what? I want more of my interactions with the economy to feel like renting a car.”