Why do we put up with this? Seriously? It's not as if we don't understand it. It's irrelevant whether it 'works' or not. It's patently wrong to try to trick people, we all learned that in third grade, yet we put up with this bullshit.
It is clear the pricing fuel @ $2.889 isn't done for MY benefit. What is a $0.001 ? They'll tell you it's my $0.001 per gallon and they wouldn't want to cheat me out of it, but it's obvious that's not true. If it were true, why does the price always end with nine?
I'll tell you what it is: distraction. It is a way to distract my attention past what I'm doing and into the process of doing it. It is a way of resisting my intelligence by removing my decision making processes. Most importantly however, it is a net drain on society.
When a merchant prices an item at $9.99 instead of $10, what have they accomplished?
For starters, should you possess any to start with, they should have offended your intelligence. They are simultaneously insinuating that not only do you not have the presence of mind to realize that you're spending $10 instead of nine, but they're also suggesting that you're subject to being swayed by such a sophomoric ploy.
They waste a significant amount of effort and resources in supporting this inane behavior. Waste behaviors ranging from pissing away extra ink printing all those damned nines instead of zeros to increasing consumer confusion stems from silly notions like minus-one-whatever (i.e. penny, dollar, ten dollars, hundred dollars) pricing. Obfuscation of tax amounts, confusing and difficult calculations of discounts, and overly complicated signage all result in wasted brain cycles. All for the point of trying to separate you from your intelligence.
Most importantly however, minus-one pricing is a net drain on society. I say this not because of some vague fiscal calculation designed to entice, but because it is a state of mind.
We simply accept it. The "99-cent store" has replaced the "dollar store" both literally and physically. We, as a society have accepted that it is the nature of the universe for merchants to employ deceptive means in their efforts to sway our business, and even worse, we've given it our tacit approval. We don't even REGISTER how annoying it is to try to calculate a 20% discount on a 79 cent candy bar. We ACCEPT that the merchant pushes the envelope of his profit margin to its extremest limit.
Most of us are not concerned with whether our merchant is gleaning 8 cents or 9 per loaf of bread, or whether his profit margin is 23 or 23.9 or 24.1 cents per gallon of gas. We really don't care at all, but we all accept it quietly and look the other way, because we all know, deep down, that our whole society is broken, from its core.
That's because the core of our society is violent, animalistic and cruel, removed from puerile, bloody carnage on the savannah by the mere invocation of a scant few thousand years of "development". In all that time, in spite of all the accomplishments of our societies, we still allow that whatever means necessary to capture the profit of the day are the means that man, nay should be employed.
We legally bind the administrators of all publicly traded companies to an oath of maximizing profits by whatever means are necessary, within the bounds of existing law. Which is why "we understand why minus-one pricing exists". We accept it because we accept that we live in a world where profit belongs to the most aggressive, regardless of whether they deserve it or not.
