The article focuses on how a high list price can deceive consumers into thinking they're getting a good deal. That's true but it's not the whole story. Sometim

The article focuses on how a high list price can deceive consumers into thinking they're getting a good deal. That's true but it's not the whole story. Sometimes a high list price is combined with custom discounts to extract the most money from each customer. You see this more often when a market is closer to a monopoly, e.g. enterprise software with high lock-in. In microeconomics you learn about the supply-demand curve. Normally there is a gap between the price the customer is willing to pay and the price the supplier is willing to accept. Depending on the market price, some of this gap is the consumer surplus, and some is the producer surplus (i.e. value gained by each party). When a supplier has the power to set their price depending on the customer, they can capture all of the value under the demand curve and maximise profit at the expense of the customer. A related strategy in retail is coupon discounts. Price-sensitive customers will take the time to use the coupon (when they otherwise would have not purchased), while others will pay the list price. This helps maximise the profit overall.