This also reminds me of a study mentioned in Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational (currently reading, great so far). Tversky and Kahneman gave people two sc

This also reminds me of a study mentioned in Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational (currently reading, great so far). Tversky and Kahneman gave people two scenarios. You go to buy a new office pen and find one for $25, but then you remember the same pen is on sale for $18 at a store 15 minutes away. Do you go? Most people do. Now you're shopping for a suit and you find a great one for $455, but someone tells you it's on sale for $448 at a store 15 minutes away. This time, most people don't make the trip. So is $7 worth fifteen minutes of your time, or isn't it? We apply a different standard depending on the reference price. I'm not sure this is the same phenomenon that's going on with mobile apps, but a case can be made it's related. Arguably, the reference price is $0, so any deviation from that is going to be treated with the greatest significance. But now I'm just getting back to the OP's point that "Starbucks Has No Free Alternative", from a slightly different angle.