[Novalug] Why I no longer shop at Best Buy [was] Singing the Domain Space Blues

[Miguel Gonzalez Castaños]

Maxwell Spangler escribió:
>> it turns out that at Best Buy, you can only get the Web site price unless 
>> you PRINT OUT a page showing the item and its price!!!!
>>
>> (a lame disclaimer in agate type "Online prices and selection generally 
>> match our retail stores, but may vary." is on the home page - my question is 
>> "Why?")
>>     
>
>   
>> so, for less than $10, Best Buy has lost a customer worth nearly a thousand 
>> times more in future business transactions...
>>
>> IOW, how is anyone to know what the price of ANY item is in the store???
>>     
>
> What an ironic situation.
>
> Here a consumer is once again trying to get the lowest price for something and 
> putting that above all else.  Unhappy with not being able to get the lowest 
> price, they are going to go.. where?
>
> By slowly but steadily seeking out the lowest price for things above all else, 
> consumers in America have been slowly changing our society from one based on 
> quality and values to one based on quick, personal satisfaction with the 
> lowest impact on our wallets.
>
> We've told McDonald's that we want food quick, food that tastes very pleasing 
> and satisfying and at low prices.  We didn't bother to tell them anything 
> about not using Microwaves to cook everything, about using natural 
> ingredients, about keeping food healthy, about paying living wages or about 
> non hiring illegal immigrants.
>
> We've told Best Buy and Wal-Mart that we want a local store to go browsing in, 
> we want large selection and we want low prices.  We didn't say anything about 
> well-paid, well-educated store staff.  We didn't say anything about only 
> offering us high-quality products that will last as opposed to cheap, 
> unserviceable chineese made electronics that fill up landfills.
>
> If Billy wants to boycott Best Buy because their web prices are lower, that's 
> his and anyone elses opportunity to do so.  
>
> But unless we promote other businesses with better features at higher prices, 
> the big companies will keep growing, keep offering the same lacking 
> features and there will be no alternative to Best Buy, Wal-Mart and McDonalds.  
> No one to go to when the next boycott comes.
>
> Good luck with that!
>
>   
There is a phrase from current British prime minister Tony Blair, who 
said in an EU summit something like: "People complain in the UK about 
companies moving their factories to China or part of their production, 
but at the same time those people buy cheap products that are 
manufactured in China".

He was very right, but He forgot somehow, that although extreme 
regulation can be bad, it can't be unacceptable that companies take 
advantage of lack of labor laws in a country.

A friend of mine went to China for some weeks to see how that was like. 
She told me people slept in the same factories or supermarkets where 
they work on the counters or on the floors! I think the image that came 
up to my mind that day is something recurring when I hear on the news 
that is an economy growing very fast and all that. It is a sad irony 
that the politics of a communist? country are turning their country in a 
big factory with no respects to workers' rights.

Try to compete in a market with low prices derived from fair differences 
in economies is completely acceptable (there are a few examples). But 
the situation of abuse in some countries like China (and the forecoming 
when the cheap labor in China is gone) this is something to blame, as 
someone pointed out, to the end consumers. We live in a 
"use-and-throw-away"(or whatever is said in English :) ) economy. I am 
astonished of what the people throw away in the streets because they 
consider those items useless. I'm astonished and I'm coming from a 
western country. I can't imagine how people see us when they come from 
less developed countries. This is an abundancy society, you can see it 
everywhere: the portions in restaurants (food that is thrown away), the 
inefficient use of the energy (full beam freezing air conditioners or 
burning heaters...). This is something that our planet will not be able 
to stand much more time. It is not apocaliptic, it is common sense. 
Nature has a limit. Developed countries? So much progress and no 
efficiency at all...

Homo homini lupus est...

Sorry for the speech, but I wanted to give a different perspective

Miguel