Shrinkflation
shrink-FLAY-shunnoun
DiagnosisChronic, deniable
What it means
Reducing what the customer receives while holding the price, on the assumption that nobody reads the weight alongside the cost.
What it actually means
It costs the same and there is less of it.
How it is used in a sentence
"Same price, twenty grams lighter. That is shrinkflation."
Filed under
Systemic Absurdities — Prices, platforms and institutions that were designed this way and would prefer you assumed otherwise.
Diagnosis — The phrase already names a real problem. We define it properly.
Related entries
The Loyalty Tax
Systemic Absurditiesthuh LOY-ul-tee taksnounCoinage
The surcharge paid for not shopping around, applied to everybody who assumed that staying would eventually be rewarded.
Real meaningNew customers get the discount. Existing ones fund it.
Planned Obsolescence
Systemic Absurditiespland ob-suh-LES-unsnounDiagnosis
Designing a product to stop working at the point where repairing it becomes expensive, so that replacement looks like a choice.
Real meaningIt was built to die on schedule.