Not sure if &quot;principle&quot; is the best word, but I wanted to keep the post short. Better would be to say that it&#x27;s against assumptions which make free markets at least theoretically efficient.<p>The other response to you is correct, and on top of that:<p>When you have discrimination, you&#x27;re effectively making multiple different &quot;equilibria&quot; on the demand curve (instead of one intersection with supply curve). Once you admit multiple equilibria, all the bets about efficiency (and also fairness) are off.<p>Alternatively you can look at it as follows: The free market can be characterized by existence of market price, on which the participants converge... If you have discrimination, they won&#x27;t converge on market price and so you don&#x27;t really have free market (free as in speech).<p>&gt; Due to one time expenses, some kinds of goods cannot exist without discriminatory pricing.<p>I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s true. Linux does exist, for instance.