this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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I can't wait for this to spread to unrelated areas!
Supermarkets maximizing profit: put ads everywhere and hide the most commonly bought foods!
Gas stations maximizing profits: unskippable ads on all pumps, plus the pump stops halfway to make you watch another ad.
Dating apps: oh... They already killed themselves. Swipe swipe swipe swipe. Hide messages. Hide likes. Reduse exposure to profile unless paid member.
I hate this future.
Just in case you're not just satirically listing things that are already awful;
Supermarkets increase their "retention" by limiting signage to keep you wandering and avoid "just get that thing and go" shopping. I don't know how common this is, but when I was a kid the major supermarkets had long lists of what items were in each aisle, plus highly visible signs in the aisle to show exactly where each category was. Now days at the major chains those in aisle signs are completely gone, and the categories have been whittled down to a few major categories; most products aren't represented on the sign at all e.g. you have to assume "cake mix/decorating" are in the same aisle as "flour".
Unskippable ads on all pumps are absolutely a thing that are getting more popular. Mobil is particularly bad for it in my experience.
The square button second from the bottom mutes the audio. I've taken to carrying a marker in my car and writing "<--- MUTE" next to them. Alternatively, a small screwdriver between the speaker grating.
The ones near me don't have buttons of any kind
I never see these in my area... Maybe only some places have them?
Many supermarkets already do things like putting the milk and bread at opposite sides of the store, so you have to walk through the whole store to get both. You'd often be walking past the end caps while doing so, which are essentially ads (companies pay to have their products displayed at the end caps)
To be fair, milk at the back of the store is better to keep the milk cold from getting out of the truck and into the fridge.
It's frustrating because it's all done by people. Like if a volcano erupts you can't really get mad at it. It's just physics stuff. But all of this? People are making these choices. People made of meat and bone. Like, you could find the decision makers at Google who decided to shit up their product and kick them in the junk.
What if peoples relationships create a superstructure no single human can control, and we need active collective effort to supercede it?
If a single human refuses from a moral standpoint, a humongous amount of money to do something crap as CEO controller of whichever crap company, boards will replace them, and some other human will, because material condition dictate it has to be done. No one is really in control. The boards are all just optimising for profit, because if they're not, someone else will.
How to break the capitalist cycle of control over peoples will?
In real life? I'm not sure. Years of struggle to change government to enforce regulations, break up consolidation of power, blah blah blah.
In a like ttrpg or movie? Murder. Murder the board and other management and anyone they replace until the greed stops.
Supermarkets already optimise many things, products with lower margins are at the bottom in aisles, and all the junk food or cheap liquor is next to the cashier.
Also, ever been to IKEA? That thing's a labyrinth
It's a path but, also its always been like that. Also there is a supermarket with the same idea, HEB center market.
Relevant SCP