” Have you bought a bag of chips recently? More than half the bag is air.”
Been that way for years, and is done for a reason. They are not doing it to “rip you off”.
The “Air” is actually nitrogen which keeps the chips fresh and keeps the oil from going rancid. It also helps cushion the product during shipping so you don’t end up with a bag of crumbs.
If they didn’t package it that way shelf life would be very short, spoilage loss would go up (Thus so would the retail price) and the chips would be of lower quality when you get them.
He picked a bad example; a better one would be ice cream.
Formerly sold (most commonly) in half-gallon containers, now it’s a quart-and-a-half.
Or toilet paper. There was a time the standard sheet was 4.5” x 4.5”. I’ve seen it as small as 3.7 x 3.9 in the modern era.
Or a pound of coffee - now 11 or 13 ounces.
Chips used to come in a 12 oz bag. That same bag now only holds 10 oz, and I’m already starting to see some flavors at 9.5 oz. When all this started a lot of companies introduced a higher priced, one pound “family sized” bag. Those are now 14 oz, and, having double checked on walmart.com, going down to 13.5 oz.