Now that you put it like that, yeah, it really is completely normal to have “discriminatory” discounts (as a student I personally regularly make use of them), and for a moment I even wondered why it would bother me at all, why I even thought it is problematic - but as you say it’s the fact that it’s covert is what’s problematic.
I would say it’s not even that it’s “covert” but that it’s at least seemingly arbitrary.
All those other ones it’s clear what condition you may fulfill to get the discount or understand why you didn’t. This one is just a vague “the algorithm said so.”
Now that you put it like that, yeah, it really is completely normal to have “discriminatory” discounts (as a student I personally regularly make use of them), and for a moment I even wondered why it would bother me at all, why I even thought it is problematic - but as you say it’s the fact that it’s covert is what’s problematic.
I would say it’s not even that it’s “covert” but that it’s at least seemingly arbitrary.
All those other ones it’s clear what condition you may fulfill to get the discount or understand why you didn’t. This one is just a vague “the algorithm said so.”