Thinking about some of the examples people have posted, I think people might be making decisions based on an assumption of “what if I did this many times?”. For example, if you spent all your money on blenders, you’d waste half of it if you didn’t go out of your way to get the cheaper ones, whereas if you spent all your money on laptops, you’d only waste a small percentage. Likewise with the ripoff ATMs—if you withdrew all your money from them, you’d be much better off withdrawing as much as possible each time.
Thinking about some of the examples people have posted, I think people might be making decisions based on an assumption of “what if I did this many times?”. For example, if you spent all your money on blenders, you’d waste half of it if you didn’t go out of your way to get the cheaper ones, whereas if you spent all your money on laptops, you’d only waste a small percentage. Likewise with the ripoff ATMs—if you withdrew all your money from them, you’d be much better off withdrawing as much as possible each time.