The total price of your sandwich is actually about 99 cents, give or take the fluctuating price of vegetables. Meat is absurdly stable, and let's not even BEGIN with the reality that so much of the "meat" Subway serves is price stablized thanks to the sheer number of fillers in that turkey loaf they're slicing for you out of sight.
I remember when they took spinach of the menu, claiming it was due to a salmonella outbreak in California. In fact, forcing the spinach in California to be destroyed raised the price, making it less profitable than regular salad greens.
In truth, THEY should be paying YOU to take it away.
If I'm stuck in suburban nowhere or a food desert in the ghetto I will eat at Subway in a pinch. I agree completely that it's a ripoff. As a person that cares about bread, I find their nerf rolls to be pretty depressing. I prefer regular delis.
Subway is my second choice for bad fast food, after Taco Bell. Third if you consider d'Angelos to be "bad fast food" rather than the next tier "acceptable fast food". Like baleen, I will take delis over Subway if possible; there's usually enough mom & pop Italian places around that I can find some good grinders on the cheap, but Subway will do in an emergency.
Their sweet onion chicken teriyaki is very nice. And this may be a controversial statement, but I actually prefer Subway to Panera Bread. Subway's prices-per-portion are more reasonable, and the atmosphere is less condescending. I also prefer Subways to Quiznos, as I find that Quiznos often goes a bit overboard with their flavour concoctions; they seem to design their subs with the way it looks on the menu as the number one concern, rather than the way it actually tastes. That said, I cannot defend Subway's price points, nor can I defend the quality of their ingredients.