I have seen prices go both ways. In general, those ladies I see have either maintained their prices or raised them; though there is one who has lowered her price.
I have seen no relationship between price and performance in the hobby except a very tenuous one at best. I have seen a relationship between price and appearance, a relationship between price and real estate market, a relationship between price and advertising venue and even a relationship between price and who a lady's friends are. But I've seen no real relationship that allows you to predict performance of an unmet woman based on rates alone.
Obviously, everyone has a market and a niche -- and how they appeal to that market, which is fine. A lot of people have a perception that if a lady who charges $350/hr is really great, then a lady who charges $3,500/hr would be ten times as great. There is a lot of advertising in a lot of arenas even outside the hobby that focuses on this perception. And since so much of sex is between the ears, to some degree, perception is reality.
And, in fact, there was a famous study of wine you will find very interesting. The study involved heavy-duty wine snobs -- the guys in France who taste wines that cost more for a bottle than most people earn in a year; and whose fortunes are in their capacity to make the finest of distinctions between wines.
The experimenters took a mid-range red wine costing about $20/bottle. They re-bottled it in two bottles -- one label indicating that it was an inexpensive $5 "vin ordinaire" and the indicating that it was $200/bottle stuff.
Well guess what? Did the wine snob experts say "Hey, you just put the same mid-range wine into two different bottles!" Nope!
Instead, the wine snobs -- exact same wine mind you -- proclaimed the wine in the table wine bottles to be flat, sour, barely drinkable, they made faces of distaste yada yada and the stuff in the fancy-labeled bottles to be excellent, cultured, with all sorts of "fine notes," excellent finish, etc.
The only difference was the damned label and the perception of price. That's it. The difference was strictly between the ears of people who are so easily swayed by form that they miss the substance.
This tells you three important things: 1. Don't listen to wine snobs. 2. Don't believe that beyond a certain point, price equates to quality. It doesn't. It equates to image, perception and snob appeal. 3. Pay attention to substance and you will find women with sound substance at any reasonable price point.
In my limited experience, women who raised their price did not perform better for having raised it. If a lady is already a 10+ at a fee of $X, what more can she possibly provide at a fee of $X+100? Or $X+1000? This can create an issue in value-perception for current clients if they aren't grandfathered; and is likely the reason for grandfathering of rates.
Girls who had lowered their price did not perform worse for having lowered it either.
The psychological aspects of this are simply too individual to draw any conclusions.
There are perceptions of clients who are often so profoundly affected by physical beauty that they rate performance higher on that basis alone. There are also clients who really ARE affected by the car commercials delivered in British accents, and so will be like the wine snobs and have a subjective impression of superior performance just because they paid more or the lady stayed at a fancy hotel. There are issues of establishment of expectations such that if a particular expectation isn't met for a fetishized act or attribute, no matter how wonderful everything else might have been, the whole session is seen as a loss. Etc. Etc. Etc. Then there are clients who just plain LIKE the lady, and that emotional content makes a huge perceptual difference.
Certainly, some providers have their self-image tied to some degree to their rates. They feel that if they aren't getting a certain rate, they are being undervalued and this can show up in their attitude and performance. But this can occur with any provider without regard to whether she has raised or lowered her rates. But this is FAR from the only consideration because there are a host of YMMV issues that equate to the woman feeling valued by the client that can be accomplished sans cash. Depending upon the woman's particular orientation and value system, any resentment she may feel generally as a result of market forces might not apply to a given client.
So I see no difference in performance either way.
But, then again, I'm not a wine snob. LOL