I suspect it's only a matter of time until only the population that falls within the statistical model of average will be able to conduct business without constant roadblocks and pain. I really wonder if we're going to need to define a new protected class.

I get the business justification, and of course many tech companies have been using machines to make decisions for years, but now it's going to be everyone. I'm not anti business but any stretch, but we've seen what happens when there aren't any consumer protections in place

We're already there. I run a secondary browser for e-commerce and financial sites because my primary one is too locked down and misclassified as a bot. The business justification is easy to make if the long tail isn't worth supporting in the face of policies and procedures that marginalize them.

To be fair, this is just a further constriction of the current cohort of people allowed to live their lives with relatively little friction. Current disqualifiers include being poor, being a felon, and having an accent. May also include being a minority (interactions with law enforcement), being a woman (interaction with doctors and tradesmen), being a white dude with limited EQ (interactions with retail workers), and so on.

I just want to be explicit that my point isn't, "So what?" so much as, "We BEEN on that slippery slope." Social expectations (and related formal protocols in business) could do with some acknowledgement of our society's inherent... wait for it... ~diversity~.

This is already the case. Try browsing routinely with Tor Browser and you'll see.