I don’t care about mom and pop and small businesses, I think Walmart and amazon should put them out of business.

[jnklheimer]

Example one:
Buying a tool. I call the locally owned hardware store and get a price quote for $1200. I find the exact same product from Home Depot for a couple hundred dollars less, not even on sale. I call back the locally owned small business and ask them to match the price, and they tell me they won’t because “we assemble it and make sure it works”. It’s a 5-10 min job to assemble it, without any special tools. If it doesn’t work (unlikely) I’ll return it for another one. I tell the guy I’ll just buy it at Home Depot. I would have been willing to to pay $50 more, happily, but the guy didn’t even ask me what the Home Depot price is, he just immediately rejected the idea of being competitive.


2. Seafood shop I’ve gone to regularly for a few years to get fresh North American oysters puts a big sign in their doorway- “MASKS REQUIRED”. I find canned oysters from South Korea on amazon for a little less. Whatever. I cook them anyways. Ordered and delivered to my door in a couple days.

3. Small produce store has Karen employees asking me to wear masks when I go in. I always ignore them but it annoys me and I don’t like wasting energy psyching myself up for a potential confrontation everytime I want some carrots. I can walk in Walmart and get same quality produce there and use the self checkout and nobody bothers me.

I mean, at least with amazon and Walmart I know where bezos and the waltons stand. They don’t put on airs about being down to earth and local. the reality is mom and pops offer nothing great, at least where I live. The restaurants suck, I just get McDoubles from mcdonalds if I’m out and need food, instead of paying $16 for a small bowl of ethnic curry or 3 soft tacos, I can just make the food at home way better anyways. I asked the owner of a small pizza place if he uses canola or olive oil in his food because I wanted to order a pizza once and he seemed confused and annoyed as to why I would even ask him. This guy sells $25-30 pizzas and he seemed like he was annoyed I was asking for info on the ingredients. I can get a dominos pizza for 1/3 of the price and all the ingredients are listed online.

I don’t care if more small businesses shut down. Most of them deserve it. I don’t care if people who enforce mask and vaccine pass mandates lose their jobs when their employer goes out of business. I’ll just order stuff off amazon and continue using the self checkout at Walmart, unmolested.

 

[Andman]

bro reading this and your post ranting about australia makes me wonder if youre alright

 

[LeeLemonoil]

There are a lot of pros and cons for both sides - from your very personal and individual consumer point o view you’re quite right - but that’s not the universal end all of the topic

 

[milkboi]

Amazon's customer service is better than it is in 99% of other businesses, so I'm cool with them dominating the market. There are small businesses that offer unique products tho and if enough people want those products, they'll keep them in business.

The thing I don't f*ck with is government keeping any business artificially alive (eg through subsidies or weakening competition with anti-trust laws) or killing it artificially (eg through lockdowns). Just let the market do its job.

 

[HumanLife]

.

 

[Nebula]

I mostly boycott Amazon because I would hate to work for them. The USPS and UPS have decent unions. The union employees are generally doing well and able to make a living to support themselves and a family.

I stopped going to Walmart years ago because it gives me the blues to see how unhealthy people are who typically shop there. It’s depressing.

 

[jdrop]

If you feel no true local connection or desire to deposit your money closer to home, then your perception of value is an easy guide to direct how you purchase. If you lived in NY or NJ, your pizza choices would differ though. Always 1000 mom and pops selling $10-$15 pies nearby with clear quality difference above a Dominos.

 

[yerrag]

weakening competition with anti-trust laws

So you like monopolies or oligopolies that have unbridled pricing power?

 

[mariantos]

Example one:
Buying a tool. I call the locally owned hardware store and get a price quote for $1200. I find the exact same product from Home Depot for a couple hundred dollars less, not even on sale. I call back the locally owned small business and ask them to match the price, and they tell me they won’t because “we assemble it and make sure it works”. It’s a 5-10 min job to assemble it, without any special tools. If it doesn’t work (unlikely) I’ll return it for another one. I tell the guy I’ll just buy it at Home Depot. I would have been willing to to pay $50 more, happily, but the guy didn’t even ask me what the Home Depot price is, he just immediately rejected the idea of being competitive.


2. Seafood shop I’ve gone to regularly for a few years to get fresh North American oysters puts a big sign in their doorway- “MASKS REQUIRED”. I find canned oysters from South Korea on amazon for a little less. Whatever. I cook them anyways. Ordered and delivered to my door in a couple days.

3. Small produce store has Karen employees asking me to wear masks when I go in. I always ignore them but it annoys me and I don’t like wasting energy psyching myself up for a potential confrontation everytime I want some carrots. I can walk in Walmart and get same quality produce there and use the self checkout and nobody bothers me.

I mean, at least with amazon and Walmart I know where bezos and the waltons stand. They don’t put on airs about being down to earth and local. the reality is mom and pops offer nothing great, at least where I live. The restaurants suck, I just get McDoubles from mcdonalds if I’m out and need food, instead of paying $16 for a small bowl of ethnic curry or 3 soft tacos, I can just make the food at home way better anyways. I asked the owner of a small pizza place if he uses canola or olive oil in his food because I wanted to order a pizza once and he seemed confused and annoyed as to why I would even ask him. This guy sells $25-30 pizzas and he seemed like he was annoyed I was asking for info on the ingredients. I can get a dominos pizza for 1/3 of the price and all the ingredients are listed online.

I don’t care if more small businesses shut down. Most of them deserve it. I don’t care if people who enforce mask and vaccine pass mandates lose their jobs when their employer goes out of business. I’ll just order stuff off amazon and continue using the self checkout at Walmart, unmolested.

I understand your "indifference."

If it helps keep your psyche intact, then keep it up, but don't forget that big corporations are actively involved in suppressing small businesses. The big ones, obviously, are immune to almost any weather, they are masters in evasion and other scams.

The law applies to the little ones, so the next turn when you pass the old woman on the corner of the street who sells fish, to support her daughter's grandchildren, because she lost her job, think of your indifference that the old woman will also lose her job if she does not comply with what is imposed on her from above.

The same people who leave you without a mask force the old woman to ask you for a mask!

The same greedy individuals who turn you against the one from whom you bought quietly until recently are the same individuals who have tightened the noose constantly and strangled mercilessly all around them, the same individuals who will do so in order to depend only by them if you want to eat, dress etc.

So if you get mad at the corner seller, it's fixed what these individuals want, because they need you to buy from them, to turn them into millionaires, billionaires, while the corner seller gradually goes out.

I am not satisfied with these aspects either, guaranteed, only I imagine that it must be just as difficult for the one who asks for the mask and for the one who is asked for the mask.

What is to be done, to turn against each other, to become indifferent, without empathy, and to end up hating each other and tearing ourselves apart?

or

What proposal do you have for this not very pleasant situation?

Because I don't know how much indifference helps on a collective level and how much the state of indifference is maintained before it turns into something else.

 

[Jon2547]

@jnklheimer What you're saying makes sense. Here's another example, I take my son thru McDonald's once or twice a month and pay $15 if we bring our own bottle of water. I don't eat McDonald's but he does. If on the other hand, I take him to Chipotle, we're talking about taking out a small loan to pay for a couple of burritos.

Now I realize that Chipotle is a big company. But its the same mentality. They believe that they can engage in shrinkflation and all is well and nothing is going to affect their bottom line. It's an arrogant position that both small businesses sometimes have and large ones as well.

 

[InChristAlone]

Quality produce at Walmart? What town do you live in? That's ridiculous. Here in the South we have farmers markets and local grocery stores with far better produce. I have mostly stopped shopping at Walmart because it's just depressing and there's always a shortage of something I regularly buy. Who cares if it costs two bucks less if it's always out of stock! Not to mention the employees are paid far less than the employee owned grocery stores. So if you saved 10 bucks on your shopping trip it's because that 10 bucks came out of the employees and product manufacturer pockets not the CEOs. Same goes for Amazon. They continue to get richer while asking the companies who sell with them to charge less. I like to buy directly from the product's website. Sometimes you can get coupons for it and it ends up being about the same price. Amazon is also flooded with fake products. I purchased Unique-E from iHerb instead of Amazon recently because I was afraid of counterfeit.

 

[yerrag]

The very problem with relying on monopolies and oligopolies is what has been happening to the weakening of our institutions.

While you can save a few bucks that are really less consequential, you lose a lot more when you allow the same dominating market power to permeate thru other industries, in what is called market liberalization when it really is a siren song to snare and trap gullible consumers into having no choice in the long term. That has actually been actualized already when you look around and you can't smell the roses anymore but the stench and decay of dying neighborhoods.

What happened to the community news, what happened to independent broadcast media? What happened to community banks? Whet happened to insurance companies that don't gamble with money and actually serve the community and policy holders, and don't rely on government bail-out money that actually costs you a lot as a taxpayer? Tax money that would be used to maintain services for the. community.

What happened to the government developing new tracts of land to keep land prices and homes affordable? What happened to good public education, and instead it is replaced by very expensive educational institutions that put you in hock for the rest of your life, as if you don't have enough problems paying medical bills?

It would be nice if deregulation applied as well to education and to medical services and products, but that isn't then case if a lot of artificial barriers to competition such as very restrictive laws and regulations only serve to make all these products and services very expensive.

So really, you save with Amazon and with Walmart, and you say life is good, but what you save you just as readily give back to monopolistic pricing in education and medical services. You also don't get government services commensurate to the taxes you pay, as these taxes are being used to bail out banks and insurances companies that make their business fleecing the consumer.

And as big monopolies crowd out the small businesses, the more they have the power to deprive you of your rights as a free man and as a citizen. Already we see this happening.

You already have given everything away, and you still don't see it.

You can't even go out and protest lest you be charged as an insurrectionist and a terrorist, while the large businesses sponsor BLM and Antifa to burn your cities and businesses down.

 

[Lilac]

I ordered a household item from Amazon, and it showed up in a Walmart box. No competition there. That was a bit of an eye-opener.

 

[Braveheart]

I do care about the importance of small business and don't like what big business is doing to them...But, in my travels around the world I have noticed over and over again so many small business just don't know how to do it....never learned business?

 

[InChristAlone]

Amazon is a Corporatocracy. Bezos didn't have humble beginnings. His Grandfather worked for the Pentagon. Amazon is a front for an intelligence agency. The devices they sell to put in your homes to make them "smarter" have all been caught spying on you. The Ring, Alexa, they all connect to Amazon servers that store your information. Bezos bought the Washington Post with money he received through hosting government documents! It not only gave him power but now he had a propaganda tool. He hired the slimy Podesta as an editor who weaponized the term fake news. Bezos also had a relationship with EPSTEIN. He used his divorce to liquidate his assets and enhance his wealth without the market tanking from the alarm of this! He committed 10 billion dollars to fighting climate change all while shipping out thousands of small items in big packages. Then when the pandemic hit they continued to operate at full capacity while local shops were forced to have covid rules. The pandemic was a controlled demolition of the little guy. Amazon workers are treated as robots that can live without food and bathroom breaks. All the managers will drop dead early of heart attacks. Do you really believe this is a good thing?

 

[Dr. B]

Example one:
Buying a tool. I call the locally owned hardware store and get a price quote for $1200. I find the exact same product from Home Depot for a couple hundred dollars less, not even on sale. I call back the locally owned small business and ask them to match the price, and they tell me they won’t because “we assemble it and make sure it works”. It’s a 5-10 min job to assemble it, without any special tools. If it doesn’t work (unlikely) I’ll return it for another one. I tell the guy I’ll just buy it at Home Depot. I would have been willing to to pay $50 more, happily, but the guy didn’t even ask me what the Home Depot price is, he just immediately rejected the idea of being competitive.


2. Seafood shop I’ve gone to regularly for a few years to get fresh North American oysters puts a big sign in their doorway- “MASKS REQUIRED”. I find canned oysters from South Korea on amazon for a little less. Whatever. I cook them anyways. Ordered and delivered to my door in a couple days.

3. Small produce store has Karen employees asking me to wear masks when I go in. I always ignore them but it annoys me and I don’t like wasting energy psyching myself up for a potential confrontation everytime I want some carrots. I can walk in Walmart and get same quality produce there and use the self checkout and nobody bothers me.

I mean, at least with amazon and Walmart I know where bezos and the waltons stand. They don’t put on airs about being down to earth and local. the reality is mom and pops offer nothing great, at least where I live. The restaurants suck, I just get McDoubles from mcdonalds if I’m out and need food, instead of paying $16 for a small bowl of ethnic curry or 3 soft tacos, I can just make the food at home way better anyways. I asked the owner of a small pizza place if he uses canola or olive oil in his food because I wanted to order a pizza once and he seemed confused and annoyed as to why I would even ask him. This guy sells $25-30 pizzas and he seemed like he was annoyed I was asking for info on the ingredients. I can get a dominos pizza for 1/3 of the price and all the ingredients are listed online.

I don’t care if more small businesses shut down. Most of them deserve it. I don’t care if people who enforce mask and vaccine pass mandates lose their jobs when their employer goes out of business. I’ll just order stuff off amazon and continue using the self checkout at Walmart, unmolested.

amazon and even walmart do offer and list products from small businesses.
the small businesses can be very good for something like milk, where you can get more clarity on how they're processing it.

yeah if the small businesses aren't offering something unique or higher quality there isnt much point going there unless youre one of those people who believe in the buy local, support small businesses stuff who intentionally avoid shopping at costco, walmart etc.

why does he charge so much for pizza, is there anything special to it.

do pizzas even use much oil? pizzas seem to have a pretty dry crust and bread

 

[InChristAlone]

amazon and even walmart do offer and list products from small businesses.
the small businesses can be very good for something like milk, where you can get more clarity on how they're processing it.

yeah if the small businesses aren't offering something unique or higher quality there isnt much point going there unless youre one of those people who believe in the buy local, support small businesses stuff who intentionally avoid shopping at costco, walmart etc.

why does he charge so much for pizza, is there anything special to it.

do pizzas even use much oil? pizzas seem to have a pretty dry crust and bread

Dominos and other chain pizzas use an ungodly amount of fake butter.

 

[Dr. B]

If you feel no true local connection or desire to deposit your money closer to home, then your perception of value is an easy guide to direct how you purchase. If you lived in NY or NJ, your pizza choices would differ though. Always 1000 mom and pops selling $10-$15 pies nearby with clear quality difference above a Dominos.

but why does it matter how close to home the money is deposited? the businesses and people located farther can be just as valuable and deserving.

 

[bogbody]

the reason massive corporations are able to provide the services they do at the prices they do is through exploitation of workers and relying on importing products made by exploited workers and children. if you don't care about that it's on you but that's the price for convenience. once we have digital currencies and social credit scores you won't be able to buy stuff from anywhere else anyway.

 

[jdrop]

but why does it matter how close to home the money is deposited? the businesses and people located farther can be just as valuable and deserving.

Only matters to you if it matters to you. Perhaps you someone that works there, or knows a vendor that services the store, some connection. Not a judgement of value of one person over another.