“Never before have we seen these numbers,” said Jay Parsons, a vice president of RealPage, as conventiongoers wandered by. Apartment rents had recently shot up by as much as 14.5%, he said in a video touting the company’s services. Turning to his colleague, Parsons asked: What role had the software played?
“I think it’s driving it, quite honestly,” answered Andrew Bowen, another RealPage executive. “As a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually.”
The celebratory remarks were more than swagger. For years, RealPage has sold software that uses data analytics to suggest daily prices for open units. Property managers across the United States have gushed about how the company’s algorithm boosts profits.
“The beauty of YieldStar is that it pushes you to go places that you wouldn’t have gone if you weren’t using it,” said Kortney Balas, director of revenue management at JVM Realty, referring to RealPage’s software in a testimonial video on the company’s website.
It's not collusion if you just pass all the communications through a computer in the middle. Everyone knows that.
Anyway, notice he just switched industries and is doing exactly the same thing. What a shock that they'll just find a way to hide it a little better.
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It's funny that they'll make arguments for that thinking they're so clever and smart, but it's the exact opposite of what anyone even close to an expert would think. Like of course algorithms aren't naturally unbiased and apolitical.
Germany famously using early IBM computers to facilitate the Holocaust.
Great to hear such opposition to an idea from someone who would have been able to do something about it but didn't.
Trump named her acting chairperson, but it will not surprise anyone here to learn that she first joined the FTC under Obama.
I mean they're literally just forming a cartel with a level or two of obfuscation.