They tried it before, it was quickly noticed, and they apologized. But since then, they've started doing it with Prime membership, offering some deals only to Prime members while everyone else pays full price. That's not quite the same thing but certainly is hanging out in the same neighborhood.

That's not the same thing at all. It's a whole service, advertising these benefits explicitely, for which you pay explicitely.

I think rather than misinformed, you just left out a word in your claim. If you added the word "yet", then it would seem more appropriate to me.

If the advertising world believes that targeted ads are the holy grail, then why wouldn't retailers believe targeted pricing to be also be the holy grail?

Targeted pricing is the holy grail, it’s just normally done through market segmentation and targeted advertisement.

My personal belief is that if Amazon tried what you’re suggesting, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot (lose any remaining customer trust, regulators would be all over them, and competitors like Walmart would use it to gain market share overnight). In fact I was really hoping you’d share an article describing Amazon doing this so I have justification to cancel prime, ha!

Honestly, I was just going all 1984 on the concept.

However, if Amazon was really wanting to do this, they already know the avg income on everyone of their customers that have an Amazon credit card. That would be the ultimate in targeted pricing. Not just Amazon, any store branded card.