"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." — John Ehrlichman, to Dan Baum for Harper's Magazine in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971.

There are numerous examples that this is not true, and is a very common consumer misconception. If you found a LASIK place that charged $50,000 for the procedure, doesn't that make it a better quality procedure by your own definition? What about $500,000? Expensive wine comes to mind. It's easy to find examples of consumer perceived value in the wine industry. I can get a $20 bottle of wine at Costco that costs $40 at a nice restaurant. I'll still pay the $40 because it adds to the dining experience, but at the end of the day I'm drinking the same $20 wine. Natural diamonds have massive perceived value but you can get a lab produced, flawless version for a fraction of the price. Consumers put a higher value on natural diamonds because of clever marketing and decades of supply chain manipulation to make them seem rare.

> Different surgeons use a variety of different equipment and have widely varying levels of experience.

That's true and definitely something to consider other than just the cost. The cost of something shouldn't be the sole indicator of the quality, so telling people to stay away from cheap LASIK centers solely on cost is not giving a complete picture. It's going to vary from center to center often times regardless of cost. Here's a good read on perceived value: https://moneyandvalues.blogspot.com/2008/03/psychology-of-mo...

I don't understand. You have admittedly have zero evidence that paying less for a LASIK procedure results in more complications, yet you seem to have a very strong opinion about it. What does the cost of the procedure or advertising techniques of the practitioner have to do with the quality of outcome? If you get a great deal on a new car, do you think that car is going to break down more often than one that cost the sticker price?