I noticed this too from browsing while bored...its in all locations too, and ladies of all ages with not that many restrictions. I wonder why? Anyone have any theories...?
But anyhow I would be careful and make sure they are legit and not flaky or anything.
But I've also noticed ladies who's rates used to be $200-$250 like last year, are now $300-$350, it seems like the norm for the "upscale" companion nowadays.
The low end and the high end of the scale are easy to explain. Here is my theory on this:
For the low end:
It does not take any special training to do this job, any female willing to do it can do it with almost no training and definitely no education. Also, setting up to do this job doesn't require much - you just need a private residence - and almost everyone has that. Lastly, there are no financial investment costs to starting up this kind of business. The training, education, set up and investment costs are very low - in fact, one could argue it as non-existent. In economics this is called "competitor's low barrier to entry" - in other words, anyone can enter the market as a provider easily. This creates a lot of competitors, which creates a lot of competition. This kind of competition drives prices down and increases levels of services for the same dollar value. It is a drive to the bottom, and a buyer's market. People say it is all the Asian providers from China that is driving the price down - and that is largely true - but they would not be doing so if the low end of the market were not structured as I described. We should probably start seeing providers from Latin America and other impoverished areas of the world coming here to drive down prices - if the government allowed ease of entry from those areas into this country. Also, air fare costs to them is a big factor. In Europe, a lot of the low end is fulfilled by Russians and eastern block countries in the exact same way.
That takes care of the suppliers of service. As for the buyers of service, these are usually men who are very sensitive to price increases and because they are in the low end of the scale, focus on high quantity of girls and high service levels - and for that reason, do not care about "branding" - that is, that a girl has a brand (and at this end of the scale, almost all girls have no brand), and thus the buyer has no loyalty. In other words, the buyer can interchange one girl for another easily - they are all virtually the same to him, it's only the service level and age and beauty that differentiates each one.
For the high end:
While it takes no education and no formal training to be a high end provider, it takes a lot of skill and stamina and a certain kind of character to be able to do the job and command a higher price. Few women have that ability and it varies to great degrees. These women have honed in to what the buyer is looking for other than basic sex - be it extreme sex, fetishes, companionship, the promise of love, an uncommon or exotic desirability, degrees of exclusivity, etc. They know how to market these things and because few women can do this well, they are able to command a higher price because there is less competition. These women are the Ferraris to the low end women who are the Toyotas. For the buyers, they are not as sensitive to differences in prices among high end girls, or to price increases for that matter. This insensitivity gives the high end girl more room to move the prices up. The buyer also has brand loyalty because: 1) the girl is her own brand, 2) the brand is always unique. Since the buyer has brand loyalty, it is more difficult for him to interchange one high end girl for another. The buyer is also more likely to become infatuated or "fall in love" with a high end girl, both of which are the kiss of death to him because she can then extort more from him. I believe that although it takes a lot of skill to be a high end girl, eventually their prices will fall because it takes no formal education, almost no investment cost, no training, etc., to become a high end provider. As other girls learn how high end providers work, they will adapt their behaviour to become high end providers and this increases competition and drives down prices.
Though great profits in a black market (ie: undeclared and untaxed) can be had, by low end girls and especially high end girls, I truly think that this job will eventually have prices that are so low that both high and low end girls will drop out because it won't be profitable enough - though there will be a volumetric increase that will only get bigger for more girls entering the market - but for a shorter time. We will begin to see lots more amateurs entering the market for a quick buck for a short time and then leaving. Fewer girls will stay for a long period in the future. That's my opinion based on the analysis I presented.