nah, I think it's as simple as that people expect certain items will not exceed a certain amount. People are fine paying between $10-20 for a meal, but crossing $20 triggers a more negative reaction. This is why you see prices like $19.999 instead of $20.

this is well studied and that emotional trigger level used to be much lower, iirc

- inflation pricing has a half life of 6 months

- wage increases raise the emotional trigger level

People feel prices through their wallets. If their wallets are fatter, a $20 burrito is not that big a deal

Your point about $X vs $X-0.01 stands as well, but is mostly orthogonal.