How many centuries does it take to boil a frog anyway?

I would say people have been needing to avoid this since pre-Medieval transactions.

Unless of course it's to your particular advantage and you're the one receiving the dramatic discount :)

Although the more "dramatic" it sounds, may be an indication that the "special low price" is actually especially high in some kind of a deceptive way.

Now with early electronic computers they had personalized pricing at lots of places like pawn shops or used car lots back when time-sharing mainframes were the only digital option.

Even today sometimes if you are making a significant deal at a legacy "retail" chain, they have to flip back to the old proven POS kiosk emulator having the simulated green CRT display. So they can carefully craft the price of the goods & accessories purchased and comped, using more detailed cost information combined with your very own personal purchasing history. There are also sometimes secret symbols so that they can share the CRT with you without you knowing everything.

All based on natural intelligence, the computer just did the grunt work since the beginning of time.

Whether the "computer" was flesh & blood along with the intelligence or not.

Weasels gonna weas ;)