[xwdv]

I don’t get it, would people rather pay higher prices up front?

A lot of times people don’t even use the entirety of a product they pay for. Shrinkflation can essentially just cut that part out. Even if you eat 100% of something, your brain was probably satiated after eating 80%, the rest is excess.

For stuff like candy you won’t notice a missing gummy bear or two. You’ll get the same satisfaction.

[daveoc64]

A lot of people resent how sneaky shrinkflation feels.

Manufacturers would gladly boast about increasing the size of their product if they did so, but do everything they can to hide when they've shrunk it.

Manipulative tricks like oddly shaped packaging or plastic fillers to take up the space that was previously product are examples of why people hate shrinkflation.

If something goes up in price but the quantity and quality stayed the same, people wouldn't feel like they're being tricked.

[xwdv]

They wouldn’t feel tricked, but then they’d be pissed off at the rising prices, which affects their ability to enjoy the product.

If someone sells you a bag of chips but they’ve already eaten two of the chips, your enjoyment of the bag will still be the same as if you had the whole bag. If they reveal that fact to you though, then your experience will be soured.

This is for the consumer’s own benefit.

[daveoc64]

It does not benefit me when I have to buy two packs of something to obtain the same quantity of product.

[lotsofpulp]

People just like to feel outraged, apparently.

[chucksmash]

If you've always been sold a dozen eggs in a package that can hold twelve eggs, but suddenly the same package is relabelled and used to sell you only ten eggs, who in the world looks at that situation and says "as a rational market participant, I can't be mad because the package has indeed been updated to say 'ten eggs' and I just failed to take notice (yolk's on me)."

People like to be dealt with fairly. When they occasionally notice things that make them realize there are rooms full of people whose entire job is to trick them, they don't like it. Where's the mystery?

[c0pium]

Reading isn’t hard. People should try it.

[c0pium]

So much of modern life boils down to this.

[vmilner]

When I see perceivable sneakiness, I assume non-perceivable sneakiness is there too. (E.g. Poor product standards, worker abuse)

[PCMcGee1]

I just don't understand why you would expect there to be any honest companies left to deal with. Any honest company has an insurmountable disadvantage in a competitive economy where the winners fund the policymakers. The honest business will always, eventually, become the prey of vulture hedge funds and predatory mergers seeking market capture. Even if it's a privately owned business, the monopolies will just drive down prices to force it out of the market, and then once market dominance is achieved, the price rises commensurate to recoup that lost profit. Even if this ploy isn't actually profitable in practice, the financing for such corporations that employ these methods is assured, through the stock market and big banks loan practices. Monopoly is really the only game left in town, they just have to make it look enough like a "free market" to keep people from trying to make it illegal. This is rather simply accomplished by having multiple different companies all owned by the same wealthy shareholders or mutual funds. But, I'm sure you can see all this for yourself, you just can't figure out a better system.

[waffleiron]

If it’s two gummy bears a year, a decade later it’s an empty bag.