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.
Not ad brain, just a brain.
Notice all the little “Well, obviously not those ads” and implied consent scattered throughout your explanation? Did you even consider how much that would entrench current businesses if smaller companies couldn’t advertise? Or how that would proliferate enshittifying conglomerates that can package their products under a blanket consent form, locking out advertisements from competitors? How would this work for traditional advertisements like flyers, radio broadcasts, and billboards? If you banned those outright, all that remains is online advertisements, and if you think big tech has an entrenchment advantage now? Just wait until media platforms and ISPs are the gatekeepers of the most effective means of reaching customers and growing their business.
Lastly, do you have any conception of how much advertising subsidizes modern society? Think of everything from little leagues (which use corporate sponsors to pay for equipment and referees) to social media including lemmy! Every instance I know of includes an advertisement somewhere asking for donations to either support lemmy developers, or cover server cost. You could make them all paid services, but now you’ve locked out poor people from participating. Organizations could hide all functionality behind a consent form to show advertisements to subsidize cost, but then there is just a formality checkbox you must click before using any free online web service - solving exactly none of the actual issues around malware delivery, intrusive data collection, poor resource management, or even the most basic problem of advertisements being annoying.
I’m done here. Start thinking, and until then, stop wasting bytes and oxygen.