Everything is Shit: Tracking the Great Enshittening

[General Specific 3,152]

This is what excessive profiteering looks like

Time to come up with a new name, email, virtual phone, among other key information. Fill out some bs paperwork/online surveys showing shitty pay. Start circulating that info, and wala, we get the best price! Fuck you finical/software/ai engineers!!!1!
Insert Andy Dufresne in prison library.jpg

[TwiceHorn 30,834]

Grocery stores have been one of the earliest and most massive collectors of consumer data on the planet.

There's a whole company that starts with a C, can't recall the name, that sold the stores on those little discount cards and they do a ton of data mining for the stores.  The C company was a patent client of my firm 20 some odd years ago and it wasn't the only one in the business.  Made Google look like a piker, especially for the time.

[Captainant 26,902]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Grocery stores have been one of the earliest and most massive collectors of consumer data on the planet.

There's a whole company that starts with a C, can't recall the name, that sold the stores on those little discount cards and they do a ton of data mining for the stores.  The C company was a patent client of my firm 20 some odd years ago and it wasn't the only one in the business.  Made Google look like a piker, especially for the time.

Man you wouldn't believe what's available for user tracking online. If y'all aren't blocking JavaScript by default, websites can straight up record your actions in the browser as long as the tab is active with the js running. It's looney tunes. 

Like, my wife picked up a game on Switch again after not playing it for a few years. Then today YouTube is recommending videos about that game out of the blue to her. It's insipient and all-encompassing, there is no escape. 

Data has a larger market capitalization than oil. A whoooooooole shitton of that is user data and AdSense profiles tailor made and maintained to the second on every person who's ever been online. But hey it makes the internet go round and in a very real sense fuels the tech industry, so at least stonk line go up

Edited August 21 by Captainant

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4,959]

Not that I don't doubt that all kinds of shady stuff is going on with big data, but where are the whistleblowers? There has to be plenty of disgruntled employees spilling the beans. Or are they out there and don't get any attention because the folks who would facilitate that have skin in the game?

[drt 636]

You can’t blow the whistle on things that aren’t illegal, because we don’t have robust data privacy laws. 

[seven 1,358]

2 hours ago, Captainant said:

Man you wouldn't believe what's available for user tracking online. If y'all aren't blocking JavaScript by default, websites can straight up record your actions in the browser as long as the tab is active with the js running. It's looney tunes. 

Like, my wife picked up a game on Switch again after not playing it for a few years. Then today YouTube is recommending videos about that game out of the blue to her. It's insipient and all-encompassing, there is no escape. 

Data has a larger market capitalization than oil. A whoooooooole shitton of that is user data and AdSense profiles tailor made and maintained to the second on every person who's ever been online. But hey it makes the internet go round and in a very real sense fuels the tech industry, so at least stonk line go up

In all honesty I don't even mind giving all my user data away to people who just want to sell me things I didn't even know I wanted.

[Captainant 26,902]

6 hours ago, seven said:

In all honesty I don't even mind giving all my user data away to people who just want to sell me things I didn't even know I wanted.

Like higher insurance rates?

https://pirg.org/articles/car-companies-are-sneakily-selling-your-driving-data/

 

[seven 1,358]

Well not those guys obviously! 

[huge 3,774]

I mentioned upthread that the shipping on my online wine vendor has gone from free (on cases) to $1 to $5 to $20, well now in September they are discontinuing the loyalty/points program as well.

SHITTEN

[Incredulity 11,160]

15 minutes ago, huge said:

I mentioned upthread that the shipping on my online wine vendor has gone from free (on cases) to $1 to $5 to $20

Parcel shipping economics have been a disaster over the last years.  

Both FedEx and UPS are at capacity, understaffed and have literally ran out of fucks to give.  Line that up with a consumer who has been trained to expect nearly immediate delivery for free and enshittification is inevitable.

[Captainant 26,902]

6 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Parcel shipping economics have been a disaster over the last years.  

Both FedEx and UPS are at capacity, understaffed and have literally ran out of fucks to give.  Line that up with a consumer who has been trained to expect nearly immediate delivery for free and enshittification is inevitable.

Well after strangling the US trucking industry for years to squeeze out more LGU for online retail, those chickens are coming home to roost. It's not a sudden thing, truckers were getting fucked for a LOOOOOONG time. It's just that money isn't free anymore so there's fewer people willing to drive trucks that can afford the ongoing cost just to get the job

[HenryJames 65,251]

[HenryJames 65,251]

[Incredulity 11,160]

Anti-enshittened?

[elfenix 34,075]

 

[Captainant 26,902]

I would avoid boars head in the future

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bugs-mold-mildew-inspection-boars-head-plant-listeria/

[Laughs in cost cutting]

[Armybrat 40,527]

2 hours ago, Captainant said:

I would avoid boars head in the future

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bugs-mold-mildew-inspection-boars-head-plant-listeria/

[Laughs in cost cutting]

Who knew aggy/Blue Bell owned Boar’s Head?

[Biff Tannen 45,013]

10 hours ago, elfenix said:

 

When I scroll down (Macbook Air on Chrome) on a page that has a tiktok embed, when I reach tiktok, my address bar and favorites disappear until I hover over them to bring them back.  Does this happen to anyone else?

[thunderlounge 7,619]

Not for me, mac/ff, linux/ff, iphone/safari.

I have chrome on my linux box I could try later. 

[hayden_horn 11,311]

On 8/20/2024 at 10:06 PM, Captainant said:

Man you wouldn't believe what's available for user tracking online. If y'all aren't blocking JavaScript by default, websites can straight up record your actions in the browser as long as the tab is active with the js running. It's looney tunes. 

Like, my wife picked up a game on Switch again after not playing it for a few years. Then today YouTube is recommending videos about that game out of the blue to her. It's insipient and all-encompassing, there is no escape. 

Data has a larger market capitalization than oil. A whoooooooole shitton of that is user data and AdSense profiles tailor made and maintained to the second on every person who's ever been online. But hey it makes the internet go round and in a very real sense fuels the tech industry, so at least stonk line go up

yeah but it's all fake and wrong headed. 

enshittification, to me is pigeonhole targeting and that that and "impressions" seem to be driving the advertising economy when none of it really works. 

there's just a ton of "value" driven by algorithms designed to classify you as a type of consumer.

Netflix is a great example. you go into your profile and the epg is ready to serve you content it think it knows you like based on your history. have you ever just started a new profile and algorithm and suddenly find out that Netflix doesn't really suck, it has just funneled you (your profile) into the same thing over and over again in an attempt to drive engagement and impressions. this is driven by the same metrics that fuck up a Facebook feed because you hesitated for one reason or another whole scrolling. 

the algorithm is the enemy of diversity, and our lavish devotion to kpis that are basically fantasy Calvinball is going to lead us to another bubble and crash. 

if it's not already too late with the ai bubble. 

 

[C-Man 26,617]

Kroger Executive Admits Company Gouged Prices Above Inflation

https://www.newsweek.com/kroger-executive-admits-company-gouged-prices-above-inflation-1945742?fbclid=IwY2xjawE9ZzxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHYXEcj2x4UQcERPLc0tfs1U5shBq1dazhNZADMPHaKSYHEGWD_YFJZB_rw_aem_Qam-JlZIV3ZqYZysjFWQsQ

Quote

top company leader at Kroger has admitted during an antitrust trial the company gouged prices on select items above inflation levels.

While testifying to a Federal Trade Commission attorney Tuesday, Kroger's Senior Director for Pricing Andy Groff said the grocery giant had raised prices for eggs and milk beyond inflation levels.

"This is not at all surprising," Drew Powers, the founder of Illinois-based Powers Financial Group, told Newsweek. "Companies across multiple industries have been posting record profits since the COVID-19 crisis while consumers have faced the highest inflation in recent history. The math can only point to companies raising prices above the general level of inflation. As the old saying goes, 'Never let a good crisis go to waste.'"

More From Newsweek Vault: Best Ways to Pay for Walmart or Amazon Purchases

The questioning came during a court hearing for Kroger's FTC suit after the retail giant announced it would be acquiring top grocery competitor Albertsons.

Groff said Kroger intends to "pass through our inflation to consumers," after an internal email from the executive showed that the price of eggs and milk routinely surpassed what inflation would require for the chain to still make profits.

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"On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation," Groff said in the internal email to other Kroger executives.

Newsweek reached out to Kroger for comment via email.

A Kroger spokesperson previously told Bloomberg that Groff's comment was "cherry-picked" and "does not reflect Kroger's decades long business model to lower prices for customers by reducing its margins."

Not everyone believes that the email comment is reflective of Kroger's price-setting policies or the grocery industry at large.

Economists have long indicated that the grocery sector, which is composed of only a few chains like Kroger and Walmart, was benefiting from supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, allowing the companies to hike prices beyond what was necessary to retain profits.

"Comments like this, despite their honesty, call into question the explanations Americans have been given for the last three years on inflation," Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek.

"Supply chain issues, rising shipping costs, and increased wages certainly played their part in the higher prices we're currently seeing. However, the admission some prices were elevated simply because businesses knew they could doesn't help the case for those arguing price gouging isn't an issue."

The FTC antitrust case alleges that if Kroger successfully acquires Albertsons, consumers will see even higher price hikes due to the reduced competition from the two chains being merged.

Larger Trend?

During the pandemic, food and energy prices drove the overall level of inflation, and many of those same sectors saw companies post record profits, Powers said.

"There is not just one bad apple in this bunch," Powers said, adding that most companies who engage in price gouging receive limited consequences.

"Historically, corporations guilty of price gouging have faced relatively light repercussions when compared to the profits made from the offense. It will be interesting to see if Kroger is hit harder this time around as these allegations have come to light during FTC hearings in their bid to acquire Albertson's," Powers said.

Kevin Thompson, a finance expert and founder and CEO of 9i Capital Group, said Groff's comments highlight a larger trend in the current economic system.

"We've moved away from true capitalism towards an oligarchic structure with less competition and larger players dominating the market," Thompson told Newsweek.

"This shift, driven by a focus on shareholder interest, has diminished consumer choice and competitive dynamics."

Executives tend to be incentivized to maximize shareholder wealth by increasing revenue and reducing costs, Thompson said.

"This pricing strategy was likely implemented to maximize profits," Thompson said. "Other grocers may have taken similar actions, as executive compensation is often tied to stock price performance. Many executives push the boundaries of what's legally permissible to boost returns."

Because customers generally still have choices to shop at other grocers like Walmart, Thompson said Kroger is unlikely to experience any severe consequences from the FTC.

But Michael Ryan, a finance expert and founder of michaelryanmoney.com, said Kroger might have bitten off more than it can chew with its price gouging admission.

"It's like catching a kid with their hand in the cookie jar, and instead of denying it, they proudly announce, 'Yep, I took 'em all,' Ryan told Newsweek. "Kroger's not alone in this game. I'd bet my last dollar that other big players like Walmart and Publix are pulling similar stunts."

Despite the fact that this is likely a larger problem in the grocery sector, Ryan said consumers could react swiftly with their wallets.

"Customers aren't dumb," Ryan said. "I've seen loyal shoppers jump ship as soon as they feel ripped off. Once that trust is gone, it's hard to win them back."

 

[Captainant 26,902]

1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

Who knew aggy/Blue Bell owned Boar’s Head?

That would be bad, even for aggy. From the linked article:

Quote

 

A number of records also flag sightings of insects in and around deli meats at the plant, including one instance that prompted the agency to tag more than 980 pounds of ham in a smokehouse hallway to be "retained" for an investigation.

In June, another record flagged concerns over flies going in and out of "vats of pickle" left by Boar's Head in a room. 

"Small flying gnat like insects were observed crawling on the walls and flying around the room. The rooms walls had heavy meat buildup," they wrote.

Other parts of the facility were also found to have bugs, including what looked to be "ants traveling down the wall," as well as a beetle and a cockroach.

 

Edited August 29 by Captainant

[TwiceHorn 30,834]

48 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Kroger Executive Admits Company Gouged Prices Above Inflation

https://www.newsweek.com/kroger-executive-admits-company-gouged-prices-above-inflation-1945742?fbclid=IwY2xjawE9ZzxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHYXEcj2x4UQcERPLc0tfs1U5shBq1dazhNZADMPHaKSYHEGWD_YFJZB_rw_aem_Qam-JlZIV3ZqYZysjFWQsQ

 

@Bozo_Casanova Your thoughts?

From what I can see, Kroger has had consistently lower prices by a little bit, than tt/albertsons.

[Incredulity 11,160]

Journalism truly is dead.

The Kroger/Albertsons merger will not be good for competition and retail prices.  That said the linked article is woefully short on any real datapoints, nor links the alleged smoking gun email,  that would prove "price gouging".  As discussed previously at length true gouging isn't really possible in the vast majority of competitive markets.  Eggs and milk have largely been loss leaders(sold below cost) to get traffic in stores for decades.

[Incredulity 11,160]

1 hour ago, C-Man said:

"This is not at all surprising," Drew Powers, the founder of Illinois-based Powers Financial Group, told Newsweek. "Companies across multiple industries have been posting record profits since the COVID-19 crisis while consumers have faced the highest inflation in recent history. The math can only point to companies raising prices above the general level of inflation. As the old saying goes, 'Never let a good crisis go to waste.'"

https://www.linkedin.com/in/powersdrew

https://powersfg.com/meet-us

 

I don't always take my price gouging analysis from boutique financial advisors, but when I do I like it from some obscure single man firm in Naperville, IL.

[Bozo_Casanova 25,822]

17 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

@Bozo_Casanova Your thoughts?

From what I can see, Kroger has had consistently lower prices by a little bit, than tt/albertsons.

 

2 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Journalism truly is dead.

The Kroger/Albertsons merger will not be good for competition and retail prices.  That said the linked article is woefully short on any real datapoints, nor links the alleged smoking gun email,  that would prove "price gouging".  As discussed previously at length true gouging isn't really possible in the vast majority of competitive markets.  Eggs and milk have largely been loss leaders(sold below cost) to get traffic in stores for decades.

Yeah, I agree with this. And as posted Elsewhere:

Quote

One more point on all this- people throw around the term “price gouging” to describe a situation where they simply don’t like how much stuff they want costs but pay it anyway, but usually that’s just a price the market will bear.
Real price gouging is almost impossible to pull off in anything but extreme circumstances, like the aftermath of a disaster where someone is the only player on scene with lumber, plywood, dehumidifiers, distilled water etc.

And not for nothing, rising prices lower barriers to entry and in general make life harder for big corporate players, because they are an invitation to jump in.
 

As usual, progressive leftists get lost in the trees of this forest because they are generally affluent enough to avoid any consequences for being wrong.
The market power of large corporate producers is generally deployed to lower prices, not raise them. That’s where scale matters, and the proliferation of cheap shit is where the greatest damage has been done to our middle class. 
 

 

[HenryJames 65,251]

[Parliament 13,997]

Hadta use Uber for the first time in 5 years.  Friggen app showed ads while I waited for my ride.

[HenryJames 65,251]

It's like the fucking ads at gas pumps.

[Armybrat 40,527]

1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

It's like the fucking ads at gas pumps.

Turn the gas pump ad sound off.

 

Edited August 29 by Armybrat

[Brisketexan 103,515]

17 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Turn the gas pump ad sound off.

 

Yep.  Do that every time.

Another enshittification example: we use a software platform for document management.  The company decided to shift away from its existing portal, and implement one that integrates with Outlook.  Cool....except it doesn't work, is glitchy as shit, crashes all the time, loses documents, etc.  But to make sure you use it....they've stopped supporting the other portal.  

So, they "improved" the product by making it damned near non-functional (an unreliable document management system is as bad as no system).  Fucking brilliant. 

Hell, my computer installs upgrades one night a week.  I know that at least half the time, the next morning when I boot up, my laptop will be glitchy as hell, and I'll probably need to just give up and re-boot.  I spend a good 10 minutes of my day just getting my computer to run, because of all the "improvements and upgrades" it installed the night before.  We live in the era of consistent "here, let me make this thing better by making it worse."  It's so fucking stupid.

[DigglerontheHoof 20,512]

22 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Turn the gas pump ad sound off.

 

[HenryJames 65,251]

Some label the mute button, some don't. But it's always the same button. 

[Incredulity 11,160]

9 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yep.  Do that every time.

Another enshittification example: we use a software platform for document management.  The company decided to shift away from its existing portal, and implement one that integrates with Outlook.  Cool....except it doesn't work, is glitchy as shit, crashes all the time, loses documents, etc.  But to make sure you use it....they've stopped supporting the other portal.  

So, they "improved" the product by making it damned near non-functional (an unreliable document management system is as bad as no system).  Fucking brilliant. 

Hell, my computer installs upgrades one night a week.  I know that at least half the time, the next morning when I boot up, my laptop will be glitchy as hell, and I'll probably need to just give up and re-boot.  I spend a good 10 minutes of my day just getting my computer to run, because of all the "improvements and upgrades" it installed the night before.  We live in the era of consistent "here, let me make this thing better by making it worse."  It's so fucking stupid.

 

just about the time all the glitches are worked out IT has the brilliant idea to upgrade this or change that and everything gets fucked up again.  

 

Fuck I need a drink after just typing that out.  Pulse rate and BP through the fucking roof.

[Armybrat 40,527]

17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yep.  Do that every time.

Another enshittification example: we use a software platform for document management.  The company decided to shift away from its existing portal, and implement one that integrates with Outlook.  Cool....except it doesn't work, is glitchy as shit, crashes all the time, loses documents, etc.  But to make sure you use it....they've stopped supporting the other portal.  

So, they "improved" the product by making it damned near non-functional (an unreliable document management system is as bad as no system).  Fucking brilliant. 

Hell, my computer installs upgrades one night a week.  I know that at least half the time, the next morning when I boot up, my laptop will be glitchy as hell, and I'll probably need to just give up and re-boot.  I spend a good 10 minutes of my day just getting my computer to run, because of all the "improvements and upgrades" it installed the night before.  We live in the era of consistent "here, let me make this thing better by making it worse."  It's so fucking stupid.

Yeah, our desktop is almost 10 years old and is all choked up.

I need to just buy a new one and throw that old sumbitch away.

[Brisketexan 103,515]

8 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Yeah, our desktop is almost 10 years old and is all choked up.

I need to just buy a new one and throw that old sumbitch away.

I dunno, a good Gateway PC is a treasure, man.

[TwiceHorn 30,834]

5 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

 

Yeah, I agree with this. And as posted Elsewhere:

 

I agree that any pricing shenanigans, predatory, gouging, whatever, should not be effective, but over a longer term.

And consumers seem to have been quite complicit in the inflationary pressure by not changing their buying behavior much at all, despite bitching to high heaven about it.

[Bozo_Casanova 25,822]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

I agree that any pricing shenanigans, predatory, gouging, whatever, should not be effective, but over a longer term.

 

Price discovery is not a shenanigan. It’s the primary function of a marketplace. 
 

 

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

And consumers seem to have been quite complicit in the inflationary pressure by not changing their buying behavior much at all, despite bitching to high heaven about it.

That’s right. To call it “gouging” implies that consumers were subjected to unfair pricing for goods they must have despite a lack of choice and imbalance of negotiating power. That’s not what happened here. Kroger apparently increased some prices a bit to see if people would pay them, and they did. That’s just not what gouging means. 

[Captainant 26,902]

13 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

That’s right. To call it “gouging” implies that consumers were subjected to unfair pricing for goods they must have despite a lack of choice and imbalance of negotiating power. That’s not what happened here. Kroger apparently increased some prices a bit to see if people would pay them, and they did. That’s just not what gouging means. 

When there's a number of markets where Kroger is the only option thanks to decades of consolidation, this is a less effective argument. The headline came out of the trial around their proposed merger with Albertsons, which would only intensify that dynamic if they were to merge. 

Edited August 29 by Captainant

[Bozo_Casanova 25,822]

3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

When there's a number of markers where Kroger is the only option thanks to decades of consolidation, this is a less effective argument. The headline came out of the trial around their proposed merger with Albertsons, which would only intensify that dynamic if they were to merge. 

No doubt such a merger would not be great for competition. But- words mean things. If everything is price gouging, nothing is. 

Edited August 29 by Bozo_Casanova

[Fudge Nuggets 18,899]

On 8/20/2024 at 10:06 PM, Captainant said:

A whoooooooole shitton of that is user data and AdSense profiles tailor made and maintained to the second on every person who's ever been online.

How does AdSense survive?  I have never intentionally clicked on one of their served ads.  Surely they aren't getting paid enough by inadvertent fat-finger clicks to stay in business.

[thunderlounge 7,619]

You know how many idiots there are on this planet, right?

[Biff Tannen 45,013]

1 hour ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

How does AdSense survive?  I have never intentionally clicked on one of their served ads.  Surely they aren't getting paid enough by inadvertent fat-finger clicks to stay in business.

I’ve only ever clicked on the X to get rid of that horrid filth. 

[HenryJames 65,251]

7 hours ago, thunderlounge said:

You know how many idiots there are on this planet, right?

New Surly motto?

[thunderlounge 7,619]

2 hours ago, HenryJames said:

New Surly motto?

 

[Captainant 26,902]

11 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

How does AdSense survive?  I have never intentionally clicked on one of their served ads.  Surely they aren't getting paid enough by inadvertent fat-finger clicks to stay in business.

 

10 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I’ve only ever clicked on the X to get rid of that horrid filth. 

As long as the ad loads, Google gets paid. Even moreso if you click the X because it's proof positive you saw the ad. 

AdSense survives through MASSIVE scale microtargeted ads, and through being a broker of (your) user data to anyone who's got the budget to pay for it. Damn near every page you visit has AdSense trackers embedded that are reading your cookies and reporting back your browsing history for that session. It really is nuts how much they can completely legally track. 

It's a good reason to be using adblockers and JavaScript blockers to stop that shit (to an extent at least), and it does measurably improve your web browsing experience with faster pageloads

[thunderlounge 7,619]

NextDNS FTW

[High Plains Drifter 10,930]

 

Google has become essentially worthless for searching for anything. Unless you want to buy some worthless shit off amazon of course. 

Earlier, I was editing a paper, and I did a quick google search to just fact check, and the first page was all AI crap that had errors in it, followed by pages of paid listing, then page after page of crap that when I clicked on it required me to sign up  or create an account. 

Fuck, I just wanted to check and see if I am correctly remembering something that any chem undergrad would know. 

It really would have been quicker to just pull a 20 yr old chemistry text off the shelf and look it up the old fashioned way, which is what I ended up doing anyway. 

Wikipedia is now my homepage. 

Fuck you google. fuck you in your POS ass. (Remember when their corporate moto was "Don't be evil")? What a fucking joke. 

 

Yeah, I know DDG for the win, but our IT guy forbids anything but google shite on work computers. I did have DDG on my work laptop for awhile, but they took it off and took away administrator privileges, so I can't install anything without their permission. 

 

 

Also, I went on a google killing spree on my android. Deleted all google apps, and disabled the ones I couldn't delete. Now google play sends me alerts every couple of hours that various apps, (including the fucking clock lol) won't work correctly if google play is disabled. Fuck you google, the clock on my phone works just fucking fine without you. So does wi-fi, so does DDG, so does texting.

I really hope some terrorists melt down google's servers. After the dust clears and civilization is rebuilt, we will all be better off for it. 

 

 

[atomheartbevo 88,913]

On 8/20/2024 at 8:32 PM, TwiceHorn said:

Grocery stores have been one of the earliest and most massive collectors of consumer data on the planet.

There's a whole company that starts with a C, can't recall the name, that sold the stores on those little discount cards and they do a ton of data mining for the stores.  The C company was a patent client of my firm 20 some odd years ago and it wasn't the only one in the business.  Made Google look like a piker, especially for the time.

I worked at a large tech company 20 years ago, and we were building out servers to help speed up grocery store data collection, and the amount of transactions we were working towards nation-wide was insane.  My little group was working to speed things up to where custom coupons would be printed in real-time with the receipt, where the coupons would be based on what the person had shown a tendency to purchase over time, in order to bring them back to the store.

As the person is checking out and items are being scanned, the servers were looking at all of the person's transactions for the previous few weeks (it could be set by the chains, but we set it by default to a month or so because any further back and it slowed down the check out process) and the cashiers were told to chat the customers up a bit to buy some time so they wouldn't realize the cashier was waiting on the coupons to print..  The coupons had to be relevant and worthy enough to get the person back, but not go below a certain margin (for profit reasons).  One little mistake and the person is getting coupons for things they didn't buy, or bought months ago, or too much of a discount eating into profits too much. In the case where the person didn't have a the discount/member cards,  then  the coupons were based only now what they had just purchased which could be hit or miss. Ideally, you could see that they bought the same type of cereal every few weeks, so they'd get a coupon for that and want to come back, etc.  And coupons varied between people, even for the same items - the chains could program in things like if somebody was from a certain area, maybe the coupon was a little better than for somebody from a better area, etc.

It was interesting because at the time, it was mainly about two things - making sure that the customer would come back (personalized coupons), but also data on what they'd just purchased would be sent up the chain and if they bought a box of Fruit Loops, then some schmuck in a warehouse put a box of Fruit Loops on a pallet for a truck headed to the store (or a box was allocated for when they started loading a truck). The idea was that stuff that sold well would always be in stock and it would cut down on warehouses expenses of having stuff sitting around. Just-in-time and all of that.

Somewhere along the way the customer data itself became a lot more valuable than simply getting them back in the store with coupons (and later personalized mailers), but it was still up there with keeping warehouse expenses down (and not just the regional warehouses, but the backroom stock of stores).

[atomheartbevo 88,913]

One of my nephews DJed at what he said was a popular club in Houston (no idea of the name), and he shared the video with me.

Holy fuck. The youth of today could not have handled the dance clubs of the 80s and into the mid-90s.  Gen-Xers would have fucking destroyed them.