I was born in the mid-90’s and I was also more or less raised that way (until a certain age). I remember being able to get home in time for dinner after a whole day of playing outside just because it “felt” like it was almost dinner time. We would go to the nearby “forest” where we built huts, climbed into trees, made wooden swords out of sticks, and sometimes had “battles” with rivaling groups about certain areas in the forest. We’d be there for hours even in the pouring rain. There was a whole economy around these wooden swords and other services like building a hut. It was better than any video game ever could be

Honestly, however much I want to pretend to be better than that, I think it does work on me. Obviously not on a conscious level, I know how numbers work, but some part of my monkey brain sees the 1 instead of the 2 and therefore concludes that it must be way cheaper. It’s a feeling that no amount of facts is going to disable. And in the end many purchasing decisions aren’t based on a full analysis but on feelings.