What does economics say about “starting from” pricing?
Glenn Ellison's "A model of Add-On Pricing" seems closely related to this issue.

He addressed the question 'why don't firms compete more aggressively to attract consumers by lowering the initial price?' The answer that he offers is that doing so induces an adverse selection problem because lowering the advertised price will disproportionately attract "cheapskates" who will not pay the add-on price for a more expensive version of the goods.