If they're doing 80% off all the time they aren't doing something clever. They made a decision once a long time ago and haven't updated their marketing model since.

You’re reducing things to one dimension again. Just because the sign says 80% off doesn’t mean that’s the whole schtick. The profit cold be supply side for all we know. The trick is that continuous conversion is happening, the clever bits could happen anywhere.

If you're just stacking longer and longer click-bait marketing gimmicks on your splash screen, that's the opposite of "clever". That's a business model of slapping the feed bar ten times because you saw it drop a nugget of food the first time.

Not if it’s algorithmic which I’ve been trying to say. Adaptive systems can do that. Heck MAB is already a thing in production. It’s not too hard to hook it to MDPI and close the loop.