We show that a monopolist's profit is higher if he refrains from collecting coarse information on his customers, sticking to constant uniform pricing rather than recognizing customers' segments through their purchase history. In the Markov perfect equilibrium with coarse information collection, after each commitment period, a new introductory price is offered to attract new customers, creating a new market segment for price discrimination. Eventually, the whole market is covered. Shortening the commitment period results in lower profits. These results sharply differ from the ones obtained when the firm can uncover the exact willingness‐to‐pay of each previous customer.

中文翻译：

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知识的诅咒：获得客户信息可以减少垄断利润

我们表明，如果垄断者不收集客户的粗略信息，而是坚持不间断的统一定价，而不是通过购买历史来识别客户的细分，那么他的利润就会更高。在具有粗糙信息收集的马尔可夫完美均衡中，在每个承诺期之后，都会提供新的促销价格来吸引新客户，从而为价格歧视创造了一个新的细分市场。最终，覆盖了整个市场。缩短承诺期会导致利润降低。这些结果与公司可以发现每位先前客户的确切支付意愿时所获得的结果截然不同。