> Assuming there was competition from other stores such that profits stayed roughly the same, consumers would massively benefit.
This is a heroic assumption. Price discrimination by facial recognition is data-dependent, compute-dependent, and introduces a significant barrier to entry, and so it tends to centralize the market around firms with lots of data, compute, and cash. In the presence of monopoly or price collusion, price discrimination drives consumer surplus to 0. We should be very afraid of technology that can drive consumer surplus to 0 even if it only does so in centralized markets, and very very very afraid of technology like this that also centralizes the market.
Re: price discrimination
> Assuming there was competition from other stores such that profits stayed roughly the same, consumers would massively benefit.
This is a heroic assumption. Price discrimination by facial recognition is data-dependent, compute-dependent, and introduces a significant barrier to entry, and so it tends to centralize the market around firms with lots of data, compute, and cash. In the presence of monopoly or price collusion, price discrimination drives consumer surplus to 0. We should be very afraid of technology that can drive consumer surplus to 0 even if it only does so in centralized markets, and very very very afraid of technology like this that also centralizes the market.