Flip side, I hate going Krogering to Mariano's (or "Krogerano's" as I like to call it) because they are continually SKU'ing out line items I've been buying for years. Gatorade G2? Gone. StarKist EVOO tuna? Gone. Siggi's Yogurt? It's now a third of the shelf space it once had so that's on its way out. The latest? Cascade dishwasher powder! CASCADE, FOR GOD'S SAKE! Literally the best-selling dishwasher detergent brand in America! They don't carry the powder anymore! Everything now is liquid or pod-based at twice-plus the price per wash. I challenge anyone to go to their local Kroger to see if you can find it.
Over the past decade especially, America is becoming less and less the land of plenty we happily bullshirt ourselves into thinking of it as, and more and more the land of line consolidation and outright shortages. We can blame COVID for it all if we want, but really, it started long before COVID, which just accelerated the the slow-motion conditioning of the American consumer to expect less while paying more, while continuing to insist we're still the only land of milk and honey on the planet. We've already come to expect garbage customer service, so that's what they give us. They conditioning us to expect product shortages, too.
This is especially true of middle-of-the-line items. Everything anymore seems to be either cheap off-brand or private label stuff, or fancy schmancy overpriced stuff, some of which is of dubious quality anyway. It's basically an allegory for the disappearance of the American middle class altogether. Here in the Land of Opportunity™, you either you got all the money, or you got nothing.
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