Here is an example of win-win that costed WDW very little. Last year at AK, a CM kindly gave my kid a $5 treasure hunt map that redeemed for a $5 magnet upon completion. Total cost to for the map and the magnet ~25 cents. Tbh my plan for the day wasn't to pay $100 per person to walk around AK hunting for obscure patterns in buildings, but my wife and kid were excited so we did the hunt. That ended up taking at least hour around Africa, so instead of 3 of us adding to Expedition Everest's line, we bought a bubble wand and dole whips. A net win for WDW and more happiness for my family. Blah blah less profit for WDW? Wrong.
About a year ago, we sat at Culver's drive through waiting for our food. Eventually cars ahead AND behind us all got their food and left, leaving us as the lone car waiting and wondering what happened. Eventually an employee came to our car to explain that a mixup caused our order to be temporarily lost in the system. He apologized profusely, gave us 3 cards each good for any burger on their menu, comp'd our food, and brought my kid ice cream. That generosity blew my family away and now whenever we run into a screwup at a restaurant, it gets to compared to THAT event. Obviously another case of an employee being stupid, giving away freebies, and decreasing profit? Wrong again.
All sort of businesses do all sort of marketing promos that decrease profit in the short-term but aimed at higher profit in the long-term. Wine and dine clients, send them Christmas cards, and gift them company logo'd swags. Sometimes customers even expect it. The difference between that and WDW, is that WDW has a huge contingent of apologists who believes customers deserve nothing more than what they paid for, and this is despite WDW continually raising prices and cutting product/service quality. If only my rl sector had customers like these.