In the 19 sixties, humorist art bookwalt sounded an ominous alarm in a column titled package inflation. He took a dig at the american industry for devising new methods to make the product smaller while making the package larger. While we're busy looking at prices increasing, we probably are missing how the products we consume are shrinking in size. When service companies are forced to offer a relatively poor experience, at the same price, you experiencing what many people call shadow inflation.