> That recessed middle section in cookie boxes so that they give me one less cookie

They aren't trying to fool you, even if it feels that way. They're trying to not retool their entire manufacturing and logistics workflows, which they would have to do to be able to change the outer dimensions of the package.

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account42 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They could just sell the full package like they used to before if they don't want to change the packaging. The entire point of reducing the content is to mislead the consumer into not noticing a price increase.

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fluoridation a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Right. It's just a convenient side-effect that consumers are fooled.

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thaumasiotes a day ago | parent [-]

You see this complaint a lot with chip bags, which are mostly air.

But chip bags are always mostly air, and can't change, because the air is needed to provide padding that prevents the chips from being ground into dust before you open the bag.

This tends to discredit the genre of "the packaging is there to fool the customer" complaints. If you can't identify when the packaging is critical to the product, why listen to any complaints?

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fluoridation 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think that's a known quantity. Only a child would think a bag of chips is completely filled with chips. In fact, I remember first hearing about this in some science show or something; it hadn't occurred to me before then that the bags were mostly empty, it was just the way chips were packaged.

>If you can't identify when the packaging is critical to the product, why listen to any complaints?

But you can identity it. Unless this is your very first time buying the product, you more or less know what its packaging looks like. If you buy a can of soda that's half empty you wouldn't think that it's so the liquid doesn't break.

Also, I've never heard anyone complain about the size of bags of chips relative to their contents. I've heard the explanations, but not the actual complaints. Is that something people actually do?

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fragmede 16 hours ago | parent [-]

Complain about feeling ripped off? Absolutely. I don't buy chips much, but skin care products are the worst offenders, with both the box and the container inside having extra space to make it look like more product than it has. I don't make complaining about this my whole identity, but I have complained about items with excessive amount of air in the container whenever I've received one.

	▲	fluoridation 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I was asking specifically about chips and the like. I've seen that shit you mention in creams and pastes and other stuff like that and yeah, that's definitely deceitful and nobody likes that. That said, for me it's not about getting ripped off, but about making it difficult to tell when I'm about to run out, especially if it's some specialty product that I have to go out of my way to get.

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account42 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"Companies don't use packaging to fool consumers" is not something that you can deduce from "some customers are confused about a specific kind of packaging".

And even for chips, "bag of air" isn't the only viable packaging method. Of course others aren't without tradeoffs either.