The crux of your comment is "offense" at the implication (correct or otherwise) that your looks reflect the price category you had in mind, because you can see

The crux of your comment is "offense" at the implication (correct or otherwise) that your looks reflect the price category you had in mind, because you can see the alternatives. (What about a shop owner directing you to a gender-specific department based on your looks? What about a shop owner directing you to the jeans section because you're wearing jeans?) You can see the expensive products you're not being offered. Online, you don't see the alternatives. So you're less likely to get offended. But here's the rub. You just don't buy. In a brick-and-mortar situation (if you can get over the offense), you might say, "Actually, I'm looking for a diamond-encrusted Rolex and have the bank account to prove it--nevermind my ripped Slayer t-shirt." And the store could pivot and sell you that Rolex. Online (and this is the difference between sales and advertising), you're not looking for what's being offered (say, a Seiko), so you don't click. You don't even enter the store. They didn't lose a customer: they lost a lead because of bad targeting. And remember that advertising is binary: you you want to buy this [Y|N]? Advertisers would love you to answer questions about your price points and interests, but you won't tell them directly (you won't), so they use what you have told them indirectly about yourself to guess. Online advertising does care about fairness or "segmentation" (read: discrimination). They don't care that you didn't get shown the "expensive products" (that you probably wouldn't buy anyway), and if you happened to have been a potential customer, losing you as a specific lead is just noise if the targeting is 95% right otherwise. Law of large numbers: who cares about you? Now, I want to tweak my targeting, and if it turns out guys in ripped Slayer t-shirts are great candidates for sales of my diamond-encrusted Rolexes, then I update my targeting, and everyone is happy. (Except for the guy who really wants to be offered a Rolex because it would make him feel good... even though he'd never actually buy one.)