memes

So this is obviously McDonald's but manufacturing suffers a similar path:

1. Make high quality and respected product onshore
2. Get purchased by vulture capitalist
3. Lower standards to increase profit
4. Product is offshored to cover up falling sales
5. Quality nosedives
6. Once the customer base catches on sales nosedives
7. Lower quality even more and brand becomes a joke
8. Get purchased by mega conglomerate who collects brands like Pokémon
9. Rival product gets made onshore by a small team who used to work for you

See Doc Martin and Solvair or Hunter Wellingtons or any other of a large number of former halo brands. Filson is one going through this right now

I love reading the ads, "now lower prices!!!1!"

So... That was an option all along? Cool. Glad it's only a product people use to live.

Inflate prices for profit

Give buyer less product

Lower quality

Brag about savings to shareholders

Get higher paying job as CEO of different company

Profit

Replacement CEO at first company: Why did people stop buying my product?

I like this because it references the concept of greed correctly.

Greed is when self interest gets irrational. Greed doesn’t maximize one’s own profit; greed maximizes one’s own profit today.

Real long term self interest means serving others consistently to create those healthy relationships that in turn serve oneself.

Greed is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I saw this happen with a local chain restaurant recently. They started cutting on ingredient quality and it was noticeable. Noticeably smaller tortillas; you could no longer opt out of onions because toppings were all combined; chips went down hill. They started losing profits, had to close a few locations, and the negative reviews started rolling in.

The end result was positive though. They saw the response and reversed the changes. They’ve gone back to their previous quality and turned things around at least a small amount. They made good with the customers—the people that are the reason they exist in the first place. I wish more places would have a similar response instead of doubling down on the enshitification.

Funny, the more I learn about corporate greed the even less I like it, in fact, I strongly dislike it.

gotta love corporations making everything shittier, smaller and more expensive and then wondering why people aren't buying their stuff

It's not greed. It's just capitalism.

But they made those changes over two years, and the last one was months ago. Clearly it can not be those executives' decisions. There must be someone else to blame.

I bet it's the workers' fault.

Yep. HP sauce did this. Used to be ubiquitous on restaurant tables in Canada. Then they changed the recipe, white vinegar instead of malt, no rue flour, orange juice concentrate instead of tanarind puree, new version was sharper, more astringent, less sweet n smoky. Everyone just quit buying it without even really noticing why. Then the old recipe started showing up in "ethnic food" aisles in areas with high dutch and English immigration.

Do people really buy less though?

I'm lovin' it

Their stock is up though, I don’t see them changing their ways if stock price is unaffected. That’s all they care about.

Oh hey lets lower prices by 50% of what we marked up and then pat ourselves on the back all over social media for being saintly and lowering prices for the struggling masses.

It ultimately harms them in the long run. I can't really feel bad for them.

I’ve mostly stopped buying middle isle grocery store items for this very reason. On the plus side I have been cooking more to make up the snack deficit. Tastes better for sure.