[JonathanMerklin]

The system is bad, no doubt, but I personally have spent almost a decade living and interacting with reality with a hard fast personal rule that every numeric value I see fronted by a "$" is only 2/3 of the actual price, and adjust my purchase habits accordingly. It's not a hard conversion to make, and the amount of times it's an underestimation are greatly eclipsed by the number of times that it's spot on or even wrong enough to be a "good deal". Life's too short to be a pessimist all the time, but in certain contexts it helps to live by the adage that if you expect the worst, you'll rarely be disappointed.

[Atheros]

If enough people have this attitude then the system collapses. Because if everyone tolerates the advertised price being 66% of actual then they'll tolerate 65% of actual. And businesses can make 1% more money by doing that. Which is a race to the bottom where advertised prices become completely disconnected from actual price and become of no value at all.

You've just given up and are letting other people fight the fights for you.

[JonathanMerklin]

What fight do you recommend I take? The way I see it, if I balk at additional fees, taxes, and tips, there is a relatively high risk that I don't even receive the product or service - which is no different than my current strategy of, loosely, "spending within my means plus a 50% buffer", with the added detriment of wasted time and effort on the haggling process.