This is one of the things I found absurd when reading a bit about "business". If I am not mistaken this is called "cannibalising your own market" and I find the concept repulsive.
If you can sell a car with a heated steering wheel for the same price or even lower than one without, the only reason you would not do it is because you care about the profit and not the product you produce.
What if you cannot sell if for the same price (in other words, high paying customers partially pay for lower paying customers).
Afaik, car manufacturing is a pretty low-margin business, about only 5-7% profit. If you sold a car at <1%, you wouldn't make it due to competition and occasional risk. But if your high-paying customer can raise your profits to 20%+, effectively subsidizing low-paying customers, then you'd average at 5-7%.
PS: low margin business is not a bad sign, in open and effective market any business must be low margin.
It definitely makes sense framed that way, if your idea about a society is that high paying customers should subsidise the low paying customers through business
"Product versioning"[2][11] or simply "versioning" (or second-degree price differentiation) — offering a product line[9] by creating slightly different products for the purpose of price differentiation,[2][11] i.e. a vertical product line.[12] Another name given to versioning is "menu pricing".[10][13]
If you can sell a car with a heated steering wheel for the same price or even lower than one without, the only reason you would not do it is because you care about the profit and not the product you produce.