If you will increase your total profits by offering a student discount, then offer a student discount. If not, then don't.
Cinemas don't offer preferential pricing to children just to be nice. They do it to maximize profits as, overall, children are more price-sensitive. And it's much easier to enforce 'child-only' prices than it is to enforce 'disposable-income-less-than-X' pricing.
Yes something I believe in might be more important than profit. But my point wasn't about whether I think students deserve discounts for some moral reason.
Student discounts are almost always a price discrimination mechanism aimed at maximising profits, rather than an altruistic gesture toward a disadvantaged group or an effort to encourage further learning. With that context, I thought the complaints of the author were strange. It's rational for him to refuse a student discount, but it's also rational for a student to ask for a discount, as there is no downside if the request is refused.
As to whether I would sell babies? Probably not. But if I were to sell babies for a living, I almost certainly wouldn't offer a student discount.
Right, it probably is more profitable for me to offer student discounts.
My choice may have a lot to do with the distinction between being an independent creator and being a large company.
The large company is probably more likely to take the profit over some sort of "stand." Plus, large companies are a part of the "establishment" that higher institutions are. The large company also can handle the operational complexity of student discounts better.
This touches on a topic I ignored in the article: Is it "right" for a company like T-Mobile to offer student discounts. In other words, are they ever so slightly perpetuating credential inflation, the need for unnecessary degrees, and the resultant predatory student lending?
It may sound like a stretch. And could anyone imagine T-Mobile saying "We no longer offer student discounts because the higher education is a bully that needs to stop victimizing 17 year olds. We're taking a stand!"? Ha.
Just a thought that passed through my mind that I haven't explored a great deal.
Cinemas don't offer preferential pricing to children just to be nice. They do it to maximize profits as, overall, children are more price-sensitive. And it's much easier to enforce 'child-only' prices than it is to enforce 'disposable-income-less-than-X' pricing.