It's actually a way to avoid the efficiency of the free market. Eventually in such a market you get to a point where prices are pretty much costs due to pressur

It's actually a way to avoid the efficiency of the free market. Eventually in such a market you get to a point where prices are pretty much costs due to pressure from competitors. If you suddenly and secretly reduce the cost of manufacture you can make a large amount of money up to the point that the customers catch on. You can then use this money to do socially useful stuff like create new and better products (if you wan to keep the company brand), or simply keep the money and let the company run down. Really advanced companies use the money to entrench a monopoly using the standard anti-competitive techniques (another popular way of avoiding market efficiency). This process is sometimes known as "harvesting the brand". It is a way of usefully exploiting your customer good will..