Wal-mart have bought ASDA, one of our major supermarket chains and the same thing is happening. To be fair to Wal-mart, it was happening before they came in, and they are not even the worst offender.

The worst offender in the UK is our chain Tesco. Watch our for them, they have a presence in the US now, and whilst not as big as Wal-Mart, they are the 4th largest in the world, so have plenty of clout and legal muscle.

And we also have the same problem of people opposing them, but then shopping there just the same.

Very Frustrating.

Winona

It also occurred to me during an ordeal involving the cable guy [and three Indian tech support people] that consumers drive this incessant focus on cost. For example, why does airline, cell phone, and cable company customer service suck? You can’t blame it on monopolistic [lack of] competition like you can with utilities. I think it’s because in our simple understanding of various options we have, we don’t have a good way to quantify service level, cost of time wasted, etc., so we focus on what we can quantify – price.

I guess sometimes we make the decision emotively. I fly on United because I get treated better than on US Air [but also because it's not my money - it's the company's]. I shop at Target because I like clean stores where I don’t have to wait in line forever with people who just stepped out off a bus from Appalachia. But it seems many people are either willing to make the sacrifice, or unable to draw the linkages between their patronage and the traffic they hate, the dissappearance of quality and competence, and the exportation of their jobs.