Valuing existing customers

I wonder if there are a group of people in companies that set the prices for their products that still like the concept of bartering? They seem to like the negotiations of trying to find the highest price an existing customer will stay with them.

I have a subscription for a security camera. Without the functionality included in the subscription it effectively makes it useless. It was due for renewal this week. There is obviously a sunk cost in terms of the purchase of the camera however I had decided that it was worth buying a different camera with a much lower subscription cost going forward. So I went to cancel the renewal.

I selected the cancel option and it asked me why I was cancelling. I selected that the prices was too high, at which point it offered me 50% off the upcoming subscription if I stay with them. Why could they not offer that price from the beginning? It was only by trying to cancel that I saved a chunk of money - money that I would have had to pay if I had just renewed.

We see this with a lot of companies that offer cable TV, mobile phone plans or Internet connections. It always seems to be new customers that are offered the better deals and the only way to get a better deal for existing customers is to threaten to quit the provider. Why have we got to this point where the only time an existing customer is actually valued is when they threaten to leave?

As I said, maybe there are some people who like to barter or wheel and deal when trying to keep a customer; maybe they just offer them a better deal from the start.