AP MicroeconomicsBehavioral Economics
Decoy Effect
The decoy effect is when adding a clearly inferior third option nudges shoppers toward a specific one of the two original choices.
Also called asymmetric dominance, the decoy is worse than one option in every way but only partly worse than the other, making the target option look like a bargain by comparison. Because people judge value relatively rather than absolutely, the decoy shifts the share choosing the targeted product, even though a rational chooser would ignore an option no one buys. Subscription pricing and menus exploit it heavily.