To be a sociopath for a second: Up-front pricing is only good for the buyer and never good for the seller. And while being an advocate for the user is a good t

To be a sociopath for a second: Up-front pricing is only good for the buyer and never good for the seller. And while being an advocate for the user is a good thing in general, it's not a good thing if the result is less revenue. And if you want to present a pricing estimate your incentive is always to lowball and underestimate. Businesses that are successful tend to exploit information asymmetry. This is frustrating as a consumer but if you can guarantee that the user doesn't know their final cost you can always sell them a sweeter picture than reality and play off the cost of switching to a competitor, if one exists. Total aside but this is why housing prices are insane, at the most micro level no buyer has any idea over the final cost until the last possible moment at which point the cost of undoing the transaction probably outweighs the risk of continuing - psychologically, at least. (I may or may not have been the victim of this recently and thought about it from the seller's side)