[Cialug] OT: Deep packet inspection meets 'Net neutrality, CALEA

[Dave Weis]

Jeff Davis wrote:
> Brandon Griffis wrote:
>> Your statement, though obviously sarcastic, is more true than you seem
>> to know.  Walmart is a great example of this.  Kmart went bankrupt and
>> there are few of them left.  Target is usually only in the slightly more
>> populated towns.  But where Walmart is the most vicious is when the town
>> has local/smaller stores.  Walmart comes in, undercuts everyone and
>> takes a loss at that store for 5-8 years.  Then when all the other
>> businesses go backrupt they jack up their prices and in many cases
>> destroy the town.  Not to mention the job loss and lack of full time
>> insured positions.
> 
> Walmart is a corporation with share holders and the goal is to earn money.
> Walmart isn't in the business of destroying towns, in fact it would not
> be in walmart's interest NOT to destroy a town.  Apparently everyone in those
> towns you cite is fickle enough that they only look to the lowest price.
> (I've noticed that often times the lowest price isn't a brand you recognize.)
> So if the towns people don't shop at the other smaller businesses, I'd
> suggest that perhaps it is the fault of those towns people that they
> no longer have any choice but Walmart.  As opposed to your theory that
> Walmart destroyed the town.

Yes, you can't be pushing your cart through walmart and comment on how 
there seems to be fewer other stores around. The reason there are fewer 
is that people stopped going to them. Kmart is probably not a good 
illustration -- they were doing a pretty good job imploding all by 
themselves. They were about like Netscape in the browser wars shipping a 
crap browser for years and spending more time complaining about MS who 
was actually trying to improve their browser. I had more X lockups 
running Netscape 4.x than any other application I can remember.

> This reminds me of some conversations I've had with people who
> complain about U.S. manufacturing being moved overseas, while
> those same people think nothing about shopping at all the $1
> stores whose inventory very rarely states "Made in the USA."

I hadn't realized it before but some of the anti-walmart and walmart 
reform groups are actually funded and operated by the unions, including 
UFCW. I would be curious how many of their members shop at walmart.


dave