Same with the overpriced "contract" plans for wireless phones (at least in the USA, not familiar with anywhere else). They show a retail price at the store, for the phone, then the "bargain" 299 price...of course with a 2 year contract. Then, that plan that you need, minus all the stupid taxes, runs over 100 dollars, and then by the time you add the taxes, it's around 140 dollars per month, x 24 months and you end up paying way more than if you bought the phone, full retail, online somewhere like Amazon, e-bay, swappa and went with an MVNO on a month to month plan. Heck, I did that two years ago and save over 80 bucks a month than being on contract.
When phones got popular, they overcharged for minutes, then, they dropped that to "unlimited" minutes, but do to the popularity of texting, they overcharge for texting, even though it DOESN'T COST THE CARRIER ANYTHING because the texting is piggybacked on the carrier signal. Now, they overcharge for data. With only 2 "big" carriers and a couple smaller ones, t-mobile, sprint...they pretty much can get away with anything they want. It's taken 30 years after the breakup of "Ma-Bell" for the mother ship to put itself back together, perhaps it needs to be spanked again, but, with the amount of money the carriers throw at the political idiots in DC, don't look for it to change anytime soon, sadly.