Ordering a pint is not booking an Uber – soon our pubs will resemble petrol station forecourts with ever changing prices
I’VE had a good look at the reasons pub company Stonegate Group has given for introducing so-called dynamic (in other words, higher) pricing in its pubs at busy times.
They say it’s about the cost of additional bar staff and bouncers, the cost of cleaning, the cost of plastic glasses and, mysteriously, “satisfying and complying with licensing requirements”.
Oddly, nowhere does it say that it is at least partly about squeezing a bit more money out of punters at busy times when those punters may be paying a bit less attention to what they’re paying for their booze.
It obviously can’t be about that then. My mistake.
You could argue that this so-called dynamic pricing is something we accept, albeit grudgingly, from other businesses, such as train companies and airlines.
But a pint is not a plane ticket to Palma or a train to Truro.
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A pint is a pint.
Can nothing be straightforward any more?
We’ve always known where we’ve stood with the price of a pint.
We knew, for example, that in fancy places it would cost a bit more.
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And that if you were drinking in the London area you’d often need a second pint to get over the astounding price of the first.
But at least we knew that the price of the thing wasn’t moving about.
We never had to wonder if the price of the next pint was going to be higher because the pub had got a bit busier.
Or that if we gave it another minute or two, the price might drop as a couple of big groups were leaving.
What is this madness?
We have enough to worry about without having to consider these variables.
And that, of course, is the beauty of it from their point of view — we won’t notice so we’ll just pay up.
I don’t know where this nonsense ends.
I can see a dystopian future in which screens behind the bar display live prices of the beers on offer, like share prices on the stock market, or betting odds at the bookies.
“Quick!” someone will shout, “Stella’s dropped to £4.90.”
And a crowd of punters will crowd the bar, at which point, of course, dynamic pricing will kick in and the Stella will shoot back up past the five quid mark.
Soon pubs will come to resemble petrol stations with neon signs outside.
Instead of prices for unleaded and diesel we’ll have the current prices of bitter and lager which, unlike petrol and diesel, could well have changed by the time you go inside and get to the bar.
OK, I’ve just remembered: Uber have that thing they call surge pricing when demand for a cab is, they claim, high.
But again, a taxi ride isn’t your favourite tipple.
For one thing, Uber do at least warn you that prices are surging before you book.
Yes, Stonegate’s pubs might leave signs dotted around the place but, to be really fair, they need to point out prices are temporarily higher at the point of sale, and indeed the point of entry to the pub.
Tricky business
The job of the bouncer used to be to look you up and down to make a judgment as to whether you’d be causing trouble.
But now they’ll have to say: “Just before you enter sir, can I point out that prices in this establishment are currently surging?
"I can only let you in if you confirm you’re comfortable with this.”
If you can think past all the madness, there is a serious point here.
In some ways it’s getting easier to be an informed consumer — the internet lets you compare prices of all sorts of things in an instant.
But the simpler it gets in this respect, the more complex it becomes in others.
Trying to compare gas and electricity prices and tariffs can be bewildering. Mobile phone contracts, too.
And don’t get me started on the small print of insurance policies.
Comparing supermarket prices is a tricky business, and even assessing the cost of similar items on sale in the same supermarket isn’t straightforward.
Some are expressed per kg, others per 100g.
Help! I need a drink. Oh, hang on, I’m not even sure what that’s going to cost me any more.
Oscar Wilde wrote 130 years ago that, “Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”
I’ve got news for old Oscar — things are even worse now.
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It’s not just that we don’t know the value of anything — before long we’re not going to know the price of anything either.
If they can make the price of a pint change before our very eyes, everything else is surely up for grabs too.