I'm not sure I really understand what you're trying to say, but it really thinks as if you're proving my point: What I wanted to say was that the difference bet

I'm not sure I really understand what you're trying to say, but it really thinks as if you're proving my point: What I wanted to say was that the difference between $0 and $1 is entirely different to the user than the difference between $1 and $2. Just like you say, you're not investing any resources for the $0 case. However, from a purely rational perspective, it looks like this: Imagine that the quality of the chocolate is a utility-function. The cheap chocolate doesn't taste good, so you only gain 0.1 points of utility on a scale from 0 - 1. The Lind chocolate tastes really great, it makes you smile and happy, it has a utility of 0.3. In this case, if you decide to buy Lind instead of Hershey's, you are willing to pay $0.10 more than what's necessary in order to gain more utility. The added value of the better chocolate has a worth of $0.10 which you're willing to pay. In the free case, the utility is the same, and the price difference is the same, so if you, earlier, were willing to pay an added $0.10 for the added utility, you should still be willing to pay an added $0.10. But of course, when there is a free alternative, people don't. You're outlining some of the reasons for that, and they all make sense, I'm just saying that this is standard human behaviour which affects the realities of the app store even though it is not rational. On a Micro Level, human beings are oftentimes not rational at all and this is a good example of that. Btw. there is a limitation in the study: People could only buy the chocolate once, so even if it is free, you could not take 100. So the no-resources point does not totally explain the behaviour either. There does not need to be a logical explanation to this anyway, it may be something that's still stuck from the Lizard Brain that's causing this.