>But that's the whole point. The stations a couple of miles away in Toronto have the same price. And it's not even that that is so worrying. It's the fact that they all change at the same time. On a weekend, for example I can end up driving all over Toronto, and no matter where I go, the prices are all the same.

The North-American continent has switched to planned economy while you were out. The prices are now changed according to the plan, somewhere in the GosPlan committee, and everyone just downloads the new prices at a given time of day (around 18:00 here). The planned economy wasn't technically feasible before internet grew sufficiently.