>

Right I understand that. But the point is also that humans aren't necessarily rational. 
My point was agree with yours about the original price point. I genuinely can't remember if the car I want is listed at $49,999 or $49,900 or even $49,499. They're all basically the same. They're all "about $50k". So another $49 one way or the other doesn't matter. I value the original price of that vehicle somewhere between $49k and $51k. 
But that swing doesn't hold true for gum.
I think another issue is in the frequency of purchase. Both a phone and TV are things you don't purchase that often, so sure, you should be looking at those $10 the same. But a hat vs a tractor? I will probably buy 10 hats (or if you're multiple husband, 50 hats) by the time I buy a second tractor. So you can't treat these the same in terms of perceived value. I can also pick from thousands of other hats if this one didn't work out, but my options for tractors are way more limited.
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You want to buy a tractor. It's 50000$. You're planning on getting it, but there's no urgency. You're at home and get a notification that the tractor is on sale for 49,951$. Do you drive 5 minutes up to the store to get it? Probably not.

I don't understand. If I have the option to spend $50000 or $49951, and the latter only requires a 5 minute drive, then of course I would take the latter.
Of course, in real life, the sale on the hat is unlikely to last long - either because the inventory will be bought, or the store isn't particularly keen on running a 98% off sale in perpetuity. Similarly, the tractor is likely to have larger sales in the future if they aren't all sold. Those factors would make a real life person more likely to go get the hat now and wait on the tractor, but this hypothetical isn't intended to take future pricing into account. It's purely a hypothetical that assumes you get a $49 discount if you drive 5 minutes. >

Okay, hypothetical 2 is probably what I should have led with:
so you go to the store to buy a tractor for 50k and suddenly its 10$ more. do you buy it?
now u go to store to buy a 50c gum and its suddenly 10$ more. do you buy it? >

I maybe buy the tractor, I don't buy the gum. However, this hypothetical is asking a different question than the hypothetical in the OP.
It's likely that somebody values gum more than 50 cents, but less than $10.50. It's unlikely that a person values a tractor more than $50000, but less than $50010.
The original hypothetical assumes that you are willing to purchase the items at their original prices, and lowering the price from there obviously doesn't make a rational consumer unwilling to purchase them at the new price. >

This is probably why the original example is also only $2k and not $20k. When these small increments don't make a dent, the value isnt perceived differently. You can probably swing several hundred dollars in either direction for a $50k tractor or car before someone changes their mind. But even at $2k, someone might jump at $10 off its something they were already going to buy anyway. >

The point of the original example is that it's irrational to not perceive the values differently.