Costco bulldozed a black and Korean neighborhood in my city using TIF money. All the earned and unearned press they get can fuck right off.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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me_irl
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Their target demographic didn't see a purchasing power increase in like 30 years, they can't charge more at the same volume of sales. And they can't move their product upmarket.
At this point them trying at the exact same price is also a publicity thing.
The $1.50 hotdog isn’t exactly done out of the kindness of Costco’s heart. It’s hard to estimate the market price of bulk goods but everybody knows $1.50 is a great deal for a hotdog, and your brain elides that into a perception of Costco as “the place with great deals.” IKEA pulls the same trick with their cafe, though to less of an extreme.
True as this may be I don’t honestly have a problem with companies giving “good deals” even if their motivations are profit, that is after all how businesses work in the big capitalism. Valve doesn’t develop proton out of altruism necessarily either yet they’ve still done a huge amount for Linux gamers.
Gabe owns a yacht and is clearly extremely rich and I still don’t think anyone needs that much money. These guys are also still extremely rich so idk give em some juicy taxes when the government works
Sure but that's a valid trade. Same with their rotisserie chicken it's a genuinely good deal. It's there to make sure you have a membership, and they put it in the back of the store because you will inevitably Buy other things you see on the way there.
But as long as you are able to have a little bit of self-control and purchase things that you will actually use you can genuinely Save A Lot in bulk at Costco compared to other places. They make money because you shop mostly with them you save some money over constantly buying individual things that you use all the time.
Even if you didn't save money it's still more convenient to only need to go shopping like once every 3 weeks for bulk items once at Costco. So there's some time savings to be had which God damn do you need as much of that as possible these days
My only issue with Costco was I always had to go to another store also. Like yeah I can get a bunch of my groceries for a good price but the don't have these other things I also need...
Sorry guys it's still the guillotine for you, but we'll let you choose face up or down.