Are we the baddies?

"Price discrimination is not okay"

Isn't this a reasonable way to achieve many desirable results? Hardcovers/paperbacks, watch a movie right away or after a few weeks, etc.

That's not price discrimination, like hardcover vs paperback if you have two versions of something and people can choose which they want. That's totally fine and actually something that makes capitalism great. The rich usually end up covering more of the costs here cause they are less price sensitive, like business vs economy on airplanes.

Price discrimination is when two people visit a site to buy a book, the algorithm computes an estimate of what they are barely willing to pay, and then shows the two of them different prices for the exact same book based on who they are.

Yours is an overly narrow version of price discrimination in which the discrimination is extended to the customer level. If that's what OP meant he should use a less ambiguous description.

The comment you replied to is OP clarifying his description.