My bet would be flight search sites will learn how to exploit this to get you the lowest fare and Delta will abandon this as it will drive business to aggregators. My money would be the search sites win out as very few have loyalty.

One maybe(?) not terrible outcome is that flight searches evolve to become instant auctions like ads.

I do a search, and the airline bots get a chance to bid on that flight itinerary. This _should_ drive prices down if there isn't collusion with the market-maker. But could lead to marketplace consolidation like ads too, which would then enable the collusion.