Tiered pricing is EVERYWHERE now. In supermarkets, if you don’t have their app/loyalty card you have to pay higher prices. They frame it as a “discount” or “savings” for having the app, but clearly it’s just a punishment for not giving them your info and allowing them to track/advertise at you.
In restaurants/fast food places, you get “discounts” (i.e. regular prices) via the app/email list, and if you don’t have the app or give them your email address you don’t get the discount (read: you have to pay higher prices). And of course they can “tailor” personalised “deals” directly at you based on your past behaviour to optimise how much money they get out of you.
I just looked at a hotel and they’re advertising a “discount” if you give them your email address (read: a higher price if you don’t allow them to advertise at you).
I absolutely hate this behaviour. I know exactly why it’s there: some people are willing to pay more for convenience/no ads, and some are willing to go to more effort / put up with ads for a lower price. Either way they get more money out of you: the logical conclusion of capitalism and chasing higher profits.
It feels like this should be illegal. It feels like a cousin of price gouging, which is already illegal. Ofc it never will be outlawed in america - idk how much this happens across the pond though - but I hope one day this could be outlawed in europe.
But what advantage does that have over just having 1 email account which you never check and only receives spam?
The only advantage I can see is maybe in several years it gets enough email that it fills up the free storage and I have to go delete everything twice a decade(being generous) but otherwise???
They cannot profile you. If you use a different email every visit or every few visits, they can’t keep track of you habits and purchases. They can’t sell your data. They can’t keep track of what other places you go to.
If you just use a single spam account, they can still profile you. They might even be able to link your “anonymous” data up with data they buy from google and such to find out more about you.