On: Linux vs. Bullshit

[brownbat]

Yeah, the organization's a mess, but there are some gems in there, like:

> Trader Joe's [in avoiding loyalty programs, coupons, and retailer trade fairs] spares itself the cognitive overhead required to rationalize complicating the living shit out of everything

Should have maybe been broken into a series of two paragraph articles.

[radley → brownbat]

This was a really bad example. Trader Joe's repackages (almost) everything under their own brand so you can't recognize and buy the product elsewhere. So technically it's (almost) all BS.

[coolgeek → radley]

You've got this backwards. TJ sells name brand products at a discount that can be fairly steep. The product manufacturers are incentivized to camouflage this (via the TJ label) so as not to cannibalize their higher margin brand name sales.

[snowwrestler → coolgeek]

This is what Trade Joe's says, but our experience is that the bill is higher at TJ's than at, say, Walmart or Safeway, for the same shopping list.

[backprojection → radley]

Sorry, I'm not following, why is that BS? It sounds like you're saying it's BS since other stores are not Trader Joe's.

[aliakbarkhan → backprojection]

It's BS because you can't compare prices even though you're basically buying the same product.

[ars → aliakbarkhan]

Maybe you can't compare the exact same product, but you can certainly compare the type of product.

[brownbat → radley]

> This was a really bad example.

Yeah, fair point, I don't cut coupons or sign up for every loyalty program, but I've still always been sort of underwhelmed at TJs.

Maybe Aldi would have been a better example.