linguistic:voice_change
Theoretical basis

Price discrimination requires market segmentation and some means to discourage discount customers from becoming resellers and, by extension, competitors. This usually entails preventing any resale: keeping the different price groups separate, making price comparisons difficult, or restricting pricing information. The boundary set up by the marketer to keep segments separate is referred to as a rate fence (a rule that allows consumers to segment themselves based on their needs, behaviour, and willingness to pay). Price discrimination is thus very common in services where resale is not possible; an example is student discounts at museums: Students may get lower prices than others, but do not become resellers, because the service is consumed at point of sale. Another example of price discrimination is intellectual property, enforced by law and by technology. In the market for DVDs, laws require DVD players to be designed and produced with hardware or software that prevents inexpensive copying or playing of content purchased legally elsewhere in the world at a lower price. In the US the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has provisions to outlaw circumventing of such devices to protect the profits that copyright holders can obtain from price discrimination against higher price market segments.