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Kids items have been cheaper as long as I can remember. I guarantee a restaurant you’ve been to has had two identical items at different prices, or things that are cheaper and you get more of the thing. The only thing modern about this is taking a screenshot of your cart.
It's called price discrimination, and it is, in fact, not new at all.
Consider, for example, that children generally also pay less for entrance into theme parks, swimming pools, and many tourist attractions, or can get a library card for free while adults have to pay full price. It actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that children generally do not earn their own money, and even if they do, they tend to earn a lot less than adults.
This is literally "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" in action.
Are there places that make adults pay for a library card? I’ve never heard of this in the US at least.
Might be wrong on that but I'm pretty sure the other examples are correct.
And this is the innocuous form of it. Places who don't serve children often are generally happy to make their profits off of adults and worry less about income from the odd child (especially Starbucks).
If you want to see real tiered pricing, look at all the fast food apps. The purpose of those is to extract as much money from you as possible. Those who don't want to deal with them pay double, and they don't lose much business from those who refuse because they're often willing to use the apps.