[Olscore]

It's you.

Your last question is loaded; it assumes maximizing profit is bad. In practice high profit margins are often a reward for being first to market. Maybe those high margins are a recompense for R&D costs. Plenty of answers to rebuke your suggestion that maximizing profits is unethical. It's also a situational topic made more nuanced by the specific product, company and many other circumstances.

[cyborgx7]

This article says nothing about compensation for heavy R&D costs. It doesn't concern itself with develpment and production costs at all. It is just describing ways in which consumers can be manipulated into spending the highest amount of money possible.

[Olscore]

There's no need to fit the post into a larger narrative; it is what it is. Seems more like you may be projecting your psychology or fears onto the article. It's just a list of pricing psychology tricks. And it cuts both ways you know; readers learn how pricing strategies may affect their buying decisions.

The article is not advocating for the "manipulation" of anyone. It's up to the reader to implement, ignore or consider. If the title and some words were rephrased it could be an article on how to spot pricing tricks; the content would mostly be the same.

[wfo]

Your response is loaded as well: you describe maximizing profits, but you don't describe the scenario required for this to be a good heuristic: a functioning market made up of primarily rational consumers who choose the best product based on its merits and cost.

But we have found that spending money on trained psychologists (or schemes developed by them) who abuse natural human tenancies to trick consumers into irrationally spending money or more money on your products is very effective at maximizing profits. But it simultaneously removes the condition that's required to make maximizing profits a good thing.

Fraud is also very profitable.

[Rexxar]

  > Your last question is loaded; it assumes maximizing profit is bad.

Or he just assumes that maximizing profit is not always good?