[brendoelfrendo]

The diversity isn't for you the customer, it's for the employees and the kind of corporate environment Costco wants to build.

Edit to add: A better corporate environment, of course, does tend to lead to a better customer experience, but the "visibility of diversity" should not be the goal but rather "genuinely fostering an inclusive environment where people are respected and feel willing to put in their best work," and I think that shows at Costco.

[drak0n1c]

It certainly is not there for the customer, as their core business of exclusionary membership is a quintessential example of systemic racism and classism via disproportionate impact.

[ok_dad]

Can you expand on this?

The cost of a Costco membership is $65 per year (really half that if you can share the 2 membership cards you get between two families), available to everyone, and the prices they have there are so good that even my 3-person family saves money each year by shopping there. Every family I know here in my local area shops at Costco, rich or poor, because the prices are so good for many things. I don't see how any of that is exclusionary on racist or classist lines, it seems to me like Costco is one of the good corporations trying to give a good service/product and low prices.

[drak0n1c]

If the time, effort, and incidental costs of procuring a state ID card is enough to render the prospect of Voter ID requirements systemically racist, classist, and exclusionary then so are Costco cards.

The argument goes as such: up-front tolls change behavior to the degree of deterring people from even trying otherwise beneficial arrangements, as people are not perfectly rational. Look at the impact of NYC’s new congestion pricing. Compare your impression of Walmart shoppers to Costco shoppers. If they don’t match there are disproportionate effects at play.

It’s possible that some mildly exclusionary policies can be worthwhile and create more societal good than bad, even if they have some incidentally disproportionate demographic impact. Perhaps endless yak shaving fixated on residual disproportionality should not have been entertained by the DEI field in the first place, and was part of what undermined its reputation.

[anon7725]

Citizens have the right to vote, not to be a Costco member.

Costco is not the sole source for anything. You can live a happy and fulfilled life never having set foot in a Costco warehouse. I often think of that just before I do, in fact.

> Compare your impression of Walmart shoppers to Costco shoppers.

There is literally no difference where I live.

[ok_dad]

I shouldn’t have asked.

[Manuel_D]

That's interesting. Every company I worked at that instituted DEI policies claimed that achieving a workforce representative of the customer base helped the customer.