alt Hacker NewsYep. People blame companies, but ultimately they are doing what the customer 'wants'. Same with things like separate fees for credit cards, or shipping. Customers don't like seeing an extra fee, so companies roll it all together - even if it often means they end up paying more in the long run.
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I believe that in all of EU you can just look at the ”comparison price” which is per-weight and listed below the normal price. It’s also very useful for quickly comparing similar products directly in-store. It’s a great piece of no-nonsense regulation that counters a lot of the deception, and instead favors competition on the price-quality axis, ie healthy market dynamics.
Call it blame, call it something else, but they are in the end changing the product while hiding it. I get these emails sometimes, probably because of regulations:
- We are changing the price from X to Y. [tirade about rising prices]
Maybe they should hang this in the restaurant:
- The THING is now smaller than January 2026. [And it’s your fault. You misers don’t want higher prices? Well have you heard of the Central Bank? ...]
That last part is optional.
The consumer is the last part in the value chain of cow to beef patty so of course he or she just has himself or herself to blame.
the customer doesnt want higher prices or smaller items. This is a dirty trick to try and make customers not notice that the quality is worse
ultimately the company is taking part in the government's goal to keep a certain level of inflation, rather than just its own desire to screw customers and make the number go up. If the government wasnt in on it, there would be regulations around shrinkflation