It's local optima - they get the 50% price dip from buying 100% instead of 99%, because it saves the monopoly money by killing competitors before they spring up

It's local optima - they get the 50% price dip from buying 100% instead of 99%, because it saves the monopoly money by killing competitors before they spring up, but the lack of competition hurts the consumers because the monopoly has no incentive to drop their prices or really innovate until a competitor with the ability to drop consumer's costs by MORE THAN FIFTY PERCENT comes along. So even if a competitor with 10% cheaper goods comes along, the consumer sticks with the monopoly 100%, for fear of being dicked by the consumer's 99% prices.