A Token Plus a Portion of Pyramid Gaming

A measure of the "pyramid game" component of a business transaction is the measure of the amount of price increase that does not have equal increase in functional capability value added.

The old "Pyramid Game" was played like, a person would send out ten letters saying to send back ten dollars to the sender, and in turn send out ten similar letters to other people. Each person that plays the game hopes to get back more money than invested. Eventually the game plays out when every prospective receiver of a pyramid letter already knows about it, and won't send any money back, game over; and the last group to have sent money to the sender, are the ones that pay the bill and get nothing in return.

In many ordinary business transactions at the present time, if a significant amount of a price increase is not matched by improvement made in the useful functionality of the item, it might be considered the same as the old "pyramid game" except with a token real physical item attached, such as a bit of real estate. In this case, the endgame losers are distributed all along the way, and they do still have the token physical items as consolation prizes, thus not a total loss. And so the game goes on, easy money for some clever folk.