[Uehreka]

That then leads to a cat and mouse chase, and in the end the big corporations will win by forcing you to tie your real identity to your shopping identity, which won’t turn off enough consumers to meaningfully impact the bottom line.

[kdheiwns]

The problem isn't really turning them off as much as it is people having no choice. There aren't too many supermarket chains. If one chain does this, rather than other chains undercutting them on price, they're going to do the same to maximize their profits. Most people only have one or two stores near their home. Some maybe have three. That doesn't leave a lot of options. And if you or your family is hungry, you won't drive around for hours, burning gas, until you find a shop that saves you a few bucks. Most people will have no choice but to give in, then the practice is implemented everywhere and the price treadmill accelerates.

[xp84]

Bingo. Exactly. In every one of these oligopolies, the most customer-hostile behaviors spread quickly and completely, and any customer-friendly ideas anyone sneaks in fizzle out quickly.

Great example: 15 years ago, assuming you were out of contract, cancelling a postpaid cell phone line worked very differently. Important to know: it was and still is “billed in advance,” meaning you pay around say, January 4, for your service from Jan 4 through Feb 3rd. So if you cancelled your service around Jan 19th, you’d be owed a refund of a half month’s service. 15 years ago, you’d receive a check or a credit to your method of payment - since you didn’t get the service you paid for, that seemed very obviously correct. Sometime at least 10 years ago, one of the cell phone carriers decided to try just saying that you never got a refund, and that if you didn’t want to be ripped off, then you should just cancel on the one day of the month where you had finished using the service you paid for (and hope you didn’t do it too late and get billed for another month). Initially it was just that one carrier who did this, but quickly this became the norm across the whole industry, and now all three postpaid carriers work exactly that way.

This is of course the same story with more well-publicized enshittification, like Basic Economy plane tickets, data caps on your broadband service, etc. etc.

[AussieWog93]

>And if you or your family is hungry, you won't drive around for hours, burning gas, until you find a shop that saves you a few bucks.

Sure, but if you felt you didn't get a good deal you're not going to go back.

Like I personally don't know every single price at every single shop before I go, but I do know for example that Henry's Mercato or the Big Watermelon will have some kind of cheap bulk fruit, Aldi has cheaper staples, Springvale has the best fish etc. etc.

There are plenty of other places I checked out once or twice and then wrote off as a bad deal.

[protimewaster]

> Sure, but if you felt you didn't get a good deal you're not going to go back.

If you feel that way about all of them, you're not just going to starve to death, though. If you've got two options and they're both bad, you probably just go to one of them anyway.