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I already know that shrinking a package is a common tactic, but I also know it goes in cycles. For instance, long ago, spaghetti used to come in 1 lb boxes. The

I already know that shrinking a package is a common tactic, but I also know it goes in cycles. For instance, long ago, spaghetti used to come in 1 lb boxes. Then I started seeing reduced size packages. Now it seems mostly back to 1 lb. My reaction to the headline is that the article is probably dumb and I don't want to read it, because the implication is that there is a new trend which will go on indefinitely until every food product is like a teaspoon. If the article was like, here's an interesting way in which economics and psychology interact to produce a discontinuous behavior in the marketplace, I'd be more positive. In other words, I have the same sour reaction as to most stuff these days - I hate journalism, clickbait, and ad-tech.

_eht 6y ago
>My reaction to the headline is that the article is probably dumb and I don't want to read it Other than being a bored, basic troll, why are you here adding useless cruft and commenting to multiple people on this particular thread? You are really just making yourself look silly at this point.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I think describing what a good article on the subject would be like is constructive. Do you have one?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
svieira 6y ago
Actually, they cite that behavior _exactly_: > Still, in the end, Dworsky says that the sneakiness, and the sense that companies have a low opinion of their customers' intelligence, is what gets to him most. Over his years as a professional observer of grocery shelves, he has noticed an interesting pattern: it is common for a downsized product to come full circle. First a product drops from 16oz to 14.5oz. Then, as the years pass, maybe it goes down to 11oz. Perhaps it even drops to 8oz. Then, a 16oz size appears again. But this time, it's the super or mega size. And the cost is much, much higher than that of the original.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  It's obviously not literally true, though. That's what I find irritating, the exaggeration and the tone, and I think it confirms that my prejudice was exactly right. The cycle does not take a huge amount of time, and if it was extreme as people pretend, then we would know it because of inflation rates, and we would all be buying super-ultra-mega sizes of everything. And it's not a low opinion of peoples' intelligence, it's a recognition that people are sensitive to price increases for unchanged products. It's directly dictated by what people feel is fair. I wish we could have articles that don't have the tone of feeding a persecution complex.

_eht 6y ago

>My reaction to the headline is that the article is probably dumb and I don't want to read it Other than being a bored, basic troll, why are you here adding useless cruft and commenting to multiple people on this particular thread? You are really just making yourself look silly at this point.

perl4ever 6y ago
I think describing what a good article on the subject would be like is constructive. Do you have one?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

svieira 6y ago

Actually, they cite that behavior _exactly_: > Still, in the end, Dworsky says that the sneakiness, and the sense that companies have a low opinion of their customers' intelligence, is what gets to him most. Over his years as a professional observer of grocery shelves, he has noticed an interesting pattern: it is common for a downsized product to come full circle. First a product drops from 16oz to 14.5oz. Then, as the years pass, maybe it goes down to 11oz. Perhaps it even drops to 8oz. Then, a 16oz size appears again. But this time, it's the super or mega size. And the cost is much, much higher than that of the original.

perl4ever 6y ago
It's obviously not literally true, though. That's what I find irritating, the exaggeration and the tone, and I think it confirms that my prejudice was exactly right. The cycle does not take a huge amount of time, and if it was extreme as people pretend, then we would know it because of inflation rates, and we would all be buying super-ultra-mega sizes of everything. And it's not a low opinion of peoples' intelligence, it's a recognition that people are sensitive to price increases for unchanged products. It's directly dictated by what people feel is fair. I wish we could have articles that don't have the tone of feeding a persecution complex.