> If you play soft to improve the relationship with some random trinket vendor in a touristy location for example, you win nothing.
Is it really true that you would win nothing? I think that one might be a better person to leave just a little on the table rather than have that random trinket vendor right on the knife-edge between taking the deal and refusing it.
You'll find no shortage of people wanting to negotiate with you if you are consistently willing to give up negotiating leverage for feeling good afterwards. In the case of the trinket vendor, they won't spend a second thinking about that one tourist who negotiated better or worse than the other hundred tourists that day. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with charity, but I don't think you should delude yourself into thinking it's anything other than that. Personally I can think of other causes I find more deserving than trinket vendors in touristy areas but whatever floats your boat on that.
Is it really true that you would win nothing? I think that one might be a better person to leave just a little on the table rather than have that random trinket vendor right on the knife-edge between taking the deal and refusing it.
One might even say that one could win one's soul!