Caymen told a quaint story that included the inquiry "why don't they drop the price a buck and give me a third less food. They would make more money and I would pay less..."
Actually, Caymen, you answered your own question through your example. Obviously for the smaller meal size and lower price there is a faulty assumption that the seller would make more, or of course, the restaurant would be willing to comply.
The faulty assumption is that if the consumer is given quite a bit less for a marginally lower price that the seller will profit.
That is not necessarily true.
Several years back my folks used to run a restaurant and they served overly sized portions as the norm...it was what they were known for.
On Wednesday nights they served Spaghetti dinners. $5.95 for spag, meatsauce with two meatballs, salad, two rolls. If you ate it all, you could have more pasta (few if any ever could). They also served a Small/Senior version for $3.95, and it had about about 1/2 of the spaq and meatballs as the regular portion, a slightly smaller salad, and one roll instead of two. It sold well.
My Dad always figured he made about twice as much profit on the $5.95 meal than on the $3.95 meal. Though, from the customers standpoint, they were getting about 1/2 as much food they paid more than 1/2 the price of the large meal. But the way they viewed it was that the large meal was more food then they needed, so they saw more value in paying a lower amount and not wasting their money.
Large portions, more stuff, a few do-dads here and there are where sellers MAKE MUCH of their profits.
I often asked my Dad why not just sell the larger meal if it makes him more money? Then, if people want Spaghetti you make more money! Why did he care if people took some home? He said, "Give them what they WANT and they will be back!".
So, in a SELLER'S market you get what the seller wants to sell you at their price terms. In a BUYER'S market we get to help define the price and product.
I guess this means that you are NOT indicative of the VW marketplace customer, Caymen, or that if you are VW isn't listening (I suspect they are listening to their customers, BTW).
TJR