Almost anyone will accept a 50% quality decrease for a 99% cost decrease. The only reasons I'm not living in a stack of cardboard boxes for $1 rent are that it's illegal, and the police won't protect it from break-ins.
My initial reaction to reading this is not "oh great analogy", it's "please have higher standards for your quality of living"
this is why i try to avoid analogies whenever i can. we've cycled through like 3 different iterations of the analogy in 5 comments, just to land on this question.