An idealized market requires full awareness of all of the costs. A key factor in "externalizing" costs is hiding those external costs from the consumer. E.g.

An idealized market requires full awareness of all of the costs. A key factor in "externalizing" costs is hiding those external costs from the consumer. E.g. a perfect market would notice the increased quality variance of goods and services and would require the price to go down proportionally so the total cost is the same. But consumers don't all see it at the same time, so every company has a chance to hoodwink every consumer by pushing additional costs onto them without their initial knowledge. The key innovation of money is the ability to accurately evaluate the value of goods and services; by pushing all of these extra external costs onto the consumer we're basically going back to bartering. Every additional variable that the consumer is required to consider during a purchase decision is additional cognitive load. That's why people pay so much for free/fixed shipping costs: it reduces the number of variables you have to keep in your head by 1. It's also why I think that adding tax after the listed price (like the US does it) is terrible: it puts more cognitive load on the consumer. Consumers today are attacked with dozens of potential hidden external costs around every corner, it's like a DOS attack on the consumer's brain and inhibits their decision making ability.