[dredmorbius]

This started becoming common in shopping malls at some point during the aughts or 2010s.

Usually accompanied by large in-corridor vendor displays which further obstructed already-crowded walkways.

I stopped going to malls.

High-street shopping districts still don't affect me to the same viscerally-negative degree. Even those which seem to be fairly consciously emulating and attempting to create a mall-like atmosphere. There's something about the open-air nature, and the fact that sounds attenuate rather than echoing off hard surfaces from all sides.