What is bizarre is why Starbucks wouldn’t charge more for the short cappuccino and advertise it. There would be two effects from this move. Some uninformed individuals who currently buy a larger size and prefer paying extra for a better coffee will switch to the short, while other people who currently buy the short would no longer do so at the higher price. Given that the short is unadvertised, it would seem as if the former effect would dominate and that Starbucks would be better off by pushing the superior short cappuccino. It must be the case that the short drinkers are highly sensitive to price, otherwise Starbucks could be enjoying a higher markup by selling more short cappuccinos.

Starbucks would never charge more for a short cappucino. The main difference between the tall and the short is 12 oz vs 8 oz. So you could just ask for a “Tall, hold 1/3 of the milk” . Incidentally, tall and short were the only two sizes Starbucks originally sold, and their naming system made sense. But in the land of super-sized fries and big gulp cokes, they needed bigger sizes to expand their market base. It’s a shame they changed the sizes though, their naming system used to make sense. (As a former barista: if I had a quarter for everytime I heard “Why is the tall the smallest size?”…)