> Sometimes that’s using psychological tricks to influence shoppers’ behavior.
Which means shoppers have an incentive to look for such tricks and ignore them, or go somewhere else to shop.
> Sometimes that’s good ol’ fashioned buying out the competition.
Which in a free market basically doesn't happen unless the competition is genuinely failing to compete.
The reason such things happen when the competition is genuinely competing is governments messing with the economy on the theory that top-down dictation of policy is necessary. For example, big box stores and chain restaurants have access to cheap loans using government printed money that smaller mom and pop stores and restaurants don't. And then we argue over whether we should use "merit" to give out the cheap loans using government printed money, or something else, when what we should be doing is preventing the government from messing with the economy in the first place.
Comments
> Sometimes that’s using psychological tricks to influence shoppers’ behavior.
Which means shoppers have an incentive to look for such tricks and ignore them, or go somewhere else to shop.
> Sometimes that’s good ol’ fashioned buying out the competition.
Which in a free market basically doesn't happen unless the competition is genuinely failing to compete.
The reason such things happen when the competition is genuinely competing is governments messing with the economy on the theory that top-down dictation of policy is necessary. For example, big box stores and chain restaurants have access to cheap loans using government printed money that smaller mom and pop stores and restaurants don't. And then we argue over whether we should use "merit" to give out the cheap loans using government printed money, or something else, when what we should be doing is preventing the government from messing with the economy in the first place.