Thanks for cluing me into the interesting history of Indonesian subsidies. Here's a good analysis for English readers [1]. It looks like fuel subsidies were very high 5y ago, when oil was at 2x today, and have come off significantly since.

I'd argue that this is exactly the sort of price stabilization mechanism that makes oil volatility less scary it sounds on its face. The government is centralizing (and, more controversially, socializing) the financial cost of creating internal price stability. This is actually pretty common, and I'm not sure 10% of budget (at peak) is as outsized as it sounds. In the USA, this takes the form of buying and releasing oil from the strategic reserve, but also in a mountain of foreign policy (read: military) spending on maintaining stable supply lines for energy trading.

[1] https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/indonesia-energy-refo...

Fuel subsidies in a lot of developing countries are politically weird. They mostly benefit wealthier people, but are most ardently supported by poorer people. It's difficult to disentangle.

People like free stuff, and after some time, it becomes expected.

Moreover, think of it in the opposite direction. Imagine a getting hit with a 10% tax increase even if a richer guy gets 15%. Him being taxed more doesn't necessarily make that 10 feel much better.