Don't Cut The Hot Dog In Half
It was never worth the fight.
Last year Starbucks did something that sounds small but wasn't. They quietly stopped charging extra for oat milk and almond milk and all the other non-dairy options, something people had been furious about for years. And twelve years into consulting on pricing and branding, here's what that told me: sometimes the fastest way to grow isn't a new product, it's admitting the thing you've been charging extra for was never actually worth the fight.
Your customer isn't dumb. They can feel it.
This connects straight to the warning I give in my book, Strategy is not Planning, about cutting your core value to protect your margins. What everybody now calls shrinkflation.
I use the hot dog example again here, because it's the clearest one I've got. If you cut the hot dog in half and charge the same price, your customer isn't dumb, they can feel it, and it will absolutely be the downfall of your business unless you manage it with real strategic care.
Two different plays, one principle.
Starbucks had been nickel-and-diming customers on milk substitutions for years while sales quietly slid, and CEO Brian Niccol basically admitted it wasn't worth the resentment it was creating, so they killed the upcharge and leaned back into being a coffeehouse people actually want to sit in.
McDonald's took a completely different route to the same principle. Instead of shrinking portions or quietly raising prices, they went the other direction and built an entire Under Three Dollar menu. Ten-plus items, visible, structural, no fine print. Same lesson, two different plays: don't quietly take value away. Either give it back, or make the value impossible to miss.
Price is the fastest lever, and the most remembered.
Hermann Simon, who's spent decades as one of the most respected pricing consultants alive, wrote an entire book called Confessions of the Pricing Man, and his core argument is that price is the single fastest lever for profit, but customers remember exactly when you use it against them instead of for them. McDonald's and Starbucks both figured out the same thing from opposite directions: trust is the actual product, and price is just how loudly you say you respect it.
Are you building trust or spending it down?
So look at your own pricing right now and ask honestly whether you're using it to build trust or quietly spend it down. Customers always notice eventually, they just don't always tell you before they leave.
Sources: Starbucks press release, "Starbucks Announces Removal of Extra Charge for Non-Dairy Milk," Oct. 30, 2024 (effective Nov. 7, 2024); McDonald's USA McValue "Under $3 Menu" announcement, April 2026.