You’re not gonna believe this, but it’s the highest number before going to the next place in base ten.
As for pricing, this happens elsewhere than America too, at least here in the eurozone it is very common too. There’s an article about it here which may or may not explain this to your satisfaction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing
As for 9 out of 10 doctors: our numeral system is based on 10 (because we have 10 fingers), so 10 is a number people can easily grasp, so to speak…
I was sceptical about psychological pricing until I worked at a call centre and had this conversation multiple times a week.
Caller: Why is my bill £10 higher this month?
Me: I see you made a £2 call to a premium rate number.
Caller: That’s only £2.
Me: Yes, your bill is normally £19.99 a month. Add on the £2 and you get £21.99, which is what you paid this month.
Caller: (notices the other digits) Oh, so it is.
It really hurts to hear people can be this stupid. Not that I didn’t know. Just… Still, ya know.
its a marketing and sales tactic to keep people from thinking about the actual value of something. They will say mentally “at least its not over $40” or things like that.
It also allows for marketers to post a price lower than the neighbor even if that difference is only or less than a single cent.
Gas for 3.9999 looks like a lower price than gas for 4.0099 So even though the price is almost the same, the store advertising $3 gas will win over the store advertising $4 gas.
real quick what is the tiny 99 used for? I was raised that those were exponents. Ami I wrong? Thank you for your reply by the way. But why 9 out of 10 doctors or dentist agree? I get its the majority but why not 4 out of 5 agree or 3 out of 4 or something? Wouldn’t that serve the same premise?
Yet another way to even further deceptively present the price. In this instance, it’s gas equal to $3.9999 or $4.0099, which are really just $4.00 or $4.01, respectively. All gas prices I’ve seem in the US have the $0.0099 added, whether shown or not.
It’s actually just one extra decimal place (thousandths), so $3.999 or $4.009.
I’ve never seen a ten-thousandths place in a price in USD.
Fun fact: mills, or one-thousandths of a dollar, were actually officially specified as valid units of currency in the first several laws establishing the US mint and the coinage system, in the late 1700s.
But yeah, now they’re mostly just used to scam people at the gas pump.
Pretty crazy to think a mil used to be about the value of one dollar today. Although it’s pretty tough to actually compare the inflation because of too many factors. Mostly just because of how different our world is from theirs.
My mistake, thanks for the correction! I didn’t know it historically went back that far as a valid unit. I always figured it was just people being scummy with no basis for it.
No prob! We never actually produced a 1 mill coin, but there was a half-cent (5 mill) coin produced until 1857!
You know how many countries have phased out the cent? The US has decided to double dip just so they can scrape a few cents out of consumers.
Their gas prices probably are an extra 0.009 or 0.0099 higher than the “advertised” price. It’s not an exponent, just an abuse of tiny numbers to shove 9/10 of a penny into the price.
Retailers learned decades ago that marking a price at at 39.99 gets much more sales than selling it for $40. It’s basically textbook chapter one of psyop capitalism.
Jokes on them, I always round up to the next full dollar mentally.
This is not an American thing, this is worldwide.
German grocery story prices, notice the nines: https://youtu.be/59P0dNM_bn4?t=132
Japanese grocery store prices, notice the nines: https://youtu.be/ucjgSc4Kj7o?t=62
Brazil grocery store prices, notice the nines: https://youtu.be/nIMrEI59w4U?t=107
Well you see a stitch in time saves nine
It’s not just America.
Part of it is what this comment says, and on an even more basic level: the decimal system!
