But then, why prescribe the most expensive placebos where you co-finance societal harmful behavior, rather than just prescribing the "harmless" placebos that are not homeopathy, which are usually even cheaper and don't have any ideological overhead?
It's a psychological effect, so things like price or flavor or packaging likely affect its strength.
Color matters: placebo colored pills work better than white pills.
Delivery mechanism matters: placebo injections work better than pills.
Idk about price, packaging, or flavor specifically. But delivery mechanism, color, number of pills, etc I remember from a study.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners...