<story><title>Beware of &apos;shrinkflation,&apos; inflation&apos;s devious cousin</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/07/06/1012409112/beware-of-shrinkflation-inflations-devious-cousin</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>function_seven</author><text>Real estate photos are so bad. When I sold my last house, I almost regretted it when I got the listing photos back. I never knew I lived in such a clean and enormous house!&lt;p&gt;Three things:&lt;p&gt;1. I get that interior shots need a wide angle to capture the boundaries of a room in a single photo. But there&amp;#x27;s a limit. Most pictures I see dial it up to those crazy levels where obviously square or circular items become rectangles and ovals. Here are 2 images I just now randomly picked:&lt;p&gt;This kitchen is long! &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;YxrRMSy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;YxrRMSy.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nope, just small: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;rPCSMUT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;rPCSMUT.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(But, the rise of 3D walkthroughs is a good antidote for this, so credit where it&amp;#x27;s due on that front.)&lt;p&gt;2. Saturation! Please, stop maxing out that slider. Sometimes it&amp;#x27;s just vivid blue sky and greenest green grass, but other times they go so far that the highlights are all blown out and everything just looks weird.&lt;p&gt;3. Fake fireplace fires, sunny weather, etc. A lot of photos have a fake sunny sky inserted into window openings, or a &amp;quot;fire&amp;quot; in the fireplace that&amp;#x27;s obviously been pasted in. Different random listing shows 2 photos with incredible luck—the flames are identical.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;jhnwvAv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;jhnwvAv.jpg&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;Ut1aTdl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;Ut1aTdl.jpg&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>alister</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;make products look bigger than they really are, especially in online photos&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve noticed that tiny condos and apartments in real estate photos look enormous. I&amp;#x27;m undecided on whether this is a deliberate attempt to mislead or an artifact of having to use a wide angle lens to capture the whole room (but an artifact that the seller and real estate agent like).</text></item><item><author>HellsMaddy</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been shopping on Instacart a lot during the pandemic and I&amp;#x27;ve noticed a related phenomenon: packaging designed to make products look bigger than they really are, especially in online photos. It&amp;#x27;s not necessarily a new thing, but the online photo aspect is somewhat novel because you don&amp;#x27;t get to see the product in context.&lt;p&gt;For example, a jar of Jalapenos, product photo: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;mprWr6R.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;mprWr6R.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In reality, the jar&amp;#x27;s cross-section isn&amp;#x27;t circular as it appears, it&amp;#x27;s an ellipse&amp;#x2F;oval: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;dXDUOR9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;dXDUOR9.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only the first photo was included in the item listing. When the groceries were delivered and I pulled out the jar, I was so surprised by the odd football-like shape that I couldn’t stop laughing for a few minutes at how well they’d fooled me.&lt;p&gt;Another common thing to see is familiar product packaging that is just “scaled down”. Everything about the packaging looks the same or very similar, but smaller - especially fonts. This deceives the eye into believing the product is much larger. I recently fell for this when shopping for some conditioner. The packaging is not exactly the same but close enough to fool me at a glance:&lt;p&gt;What I bought: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MdAuhS0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MdAuhS0.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;What I expected: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MGxdD0d.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MGxdD0d.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m inclined the believe this is on purpose because in real life, the fonts are way too small to read comfortably. If not trying to mislead, I would expect the packaging to be designed to be legible, right?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s especially frustrating because I usually would&amp;#x27;ve just paid more for the larger size.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neutronicus</author><text>My in-laws put their house on the market, and the Real Estate agent produced a walk-through video.&lt;p&gt;My wife and I couldn&amp;#x27;t stop laughing because the agent photoshopped a view into the kitchen window, but even in the context of the video it&amp;#x27;s clearly a plane with a texture on it just outside the window. It looks like a low-res poster of the Himalayas hung outside their kitchen window; it&amp;#x27;s not a convincing fake view in the slightest.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t know what the agent was thinking, the actual view out the window is better than that.</text></comment>
<story><title>Beware of &apos;shrinkflation,&apos; inflation&apos;s devious cousin</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/07/06/1012409112/beware-of-shrinkflation-inflations-devious-cousin</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>function_seven</author><text>Real estate photos are so bad. When I sold my last house, I almost regretted it when I got the listing photos back. I never knew I lived in such a clean and enormous house!&lt;p&gt;Three things:&lt;p&gt;1. I get that interior shots need a wide angle to capture the boundaries of a room in a single photo. But there&amp;#x27;s a limit. Most pictures I see dial it up to those crazy levels where obviously square or circular items become rectangles and ovals. Here are 2 images I just now randomly picked:&lt;p&gt;This kitchen is long! &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;YxrRMSy.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;YxrRMSy.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nope, just small: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;rPCSMUT.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;rPCSMUT.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(But, the rise of 3D walkthroughs is a good antidote for this, so credit where it&amp;#x27;s due on that front.)&lt;p&gt;2. Saturation! Please, stop maxing out that slider. Sometimes it&amp;#x27;s just vivid blue sky and greenest green grass, but other times they go so far that the highlights are all blown out and everything just looks weird.&lt;p&gt;3. Fake fireplace fires, sunny weather, etc. A lot of photos have a fake sunny sky inserted into window openings, or a &amp;quot;fire&amp;quot; in the fireplace that&amp;#x27;s obviously been pasted in. Different random listing shows 2 photos with incredible luck—the flames are identical.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;jhnwvAv.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;jhnwvAv.jpg&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;Ut1aTdl.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;Ut1aTdl.jpg&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>alister</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;make products look bigger than they really are, especially in online photos&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve noticed that tiny condos and apartments in real estate photos look enormous. I&amp;#x27;m undecided on whether this is a deliberate attempt to mislead or an artifact of having to use a wide angle lens to capture the whole room (but an artifact that the seller and real estate agent like).</text></item><item><author>HellsMaddy</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been shopping on Instacart a lot during the pandemic and I&amp;#x27;ve noticed a related phenomenon: packaging designed to make products look bigger than they really are, especially in online photos. It&amp;#x27;s not necessarily a new thing, but the online photo aspect is somewhat novel because you don&amp;#x27;t get to see the product in context.&lt;p&gt;For example, a jar of Jalapenos, product photo: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;mprWr6R.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;mprWr6R.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In reality, the jar&amp;#x27;s cross-section isn&amp;#x27;t circular as it appears, it&amp;#x27;s an ellipse&amp;#x2F;oval: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;dXDUOR9.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;dXDUOR9.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only the first photo was included in the item listing. When the groceries were delivered and I pulled out the jar, I was so surprised by the odd football-like shape that I couldn’t stop laughing for a few minutes at how well they’d fooled me.&lt;p&gt;Another common thing to see is familiar product packaging that is just “scaled down”. Everything about the packaging looks the same or very similar, but smaller - especially fonts. This deceives the eye into believing the product is much larger. I recently fell for this when shopping for some conditioner. The packaging is not exactly the same but close enough to fool me at a glance:&lt;p&gt;What I bought: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MdAuhS0.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MdAuhS0.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;What I expected: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MGxdD0d.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;MGxdD0d.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m inclined the believe this is on purpose because in real life, the fonts are way too small to read comfortably. If not trying to mislead, I would expect the packaging to be designed to be legible, right?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s especially frustrating because I usually would&amp;#x27;ve just paid more for the larger size.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nprateem</author><text>The easiest trick is to blast a flash off white ceilings which then makes any other white walls look bright and clean</text></comment>