RealPage, maker of YieldStar, is almost singlehandedly the ones causing rent to skyrocket across much of the United States.
One of the algorithm’s developers told ProPublica that leasing agents had “too much empathy” compared to computer generated pricing.
You can learn more about them here and why this antitrust case is so important:
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent
God I wish I had a magic baseball bat that would let me bash an understanding of what an “ALGORITHM” actually is into people’s heads. Of course it was algorithmic. It would have been algorithmic if they’d done it using styluses and stone tablets. fucking. Not the point but christ is this the one thing that drives me nuts above all others.
In this case, “algorithmic” really means “shifting responsibility to a computer”.
I had an experience like this earlier this year, when I went to buy a car. There was part of the financing regarding the state Sales Tax that I didn’t understand. When I asked their “finance manager” about it, he said that the computer spit out all the numbers and they pay a lot of money for that software so the numbers must be correct.
I almost stopped the deal right there, but I went home and googled the answer, and they were doing it correctly after all. The deal was pretty good so I still bought the car. Still, it amazes me that businesses don’t feel the need to promote managers who actually understand finance because “the computer does all the hard math”.