Pricing algorithms have always been private!! Yet "free markets" seemed to work out anyway.
Go to an auction house, or a swap meet. Haggle for prices, against other buyers, negotiate with sellers. Approach any salesman in a business with unpublished prices (B2B especially.) Try to purchase a home or a vehicle, middleman or not.
Think about it, and you'll discover that pricing algorithms have been subject to human whim since before the invention of money.
The amazing innovation of markets was indeed, up-front price tags, fairness to all buyers, yet any underlying algorithm was still private and proprietary, so the consumer at a Safeway doesn't really have any idea what his carton of milk costs or why he's paying $7 for it.
Go to an auction house, or a swap meet. Haggle for prices, against other buyers, negotiate with sellers. Approach any salesman in a business with unpublished prices (B2B especially.) Try to purchase a home or a vehicle, middleman or not.
Think about it, and you'll discover that pricing algorithms have been subject to human whim since before the invention of money.
The amazing innovation of markets was indeed, up-front price tags, fairness to all buyers, yet any underlying algorithm was still private and proprietary, so the consumer at a Safeway doesn't really have any idea what his carton of milk costs or why he's paying $7 for it.