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Comment by eecc | Hacker News Reader

Nope, you should do your research before reaching for your guns. In Italy for example it’s a well known, scandalous situation that’s been going on for years.

Apologies for the Italian links but that’s all I could find for now:

https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2020/05/14/frutta-e-verdura...

https://youtu.be/29OYrFOYkTg

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And I could play disingeniously and claim a much higher percentage in my home country, where distributors routinely make much much more. But again, that would be disingenuous, since our environment for comparison is the US market and not the Indian or Italian market, both of which are rife with corruption. I could counter with a German or a British example which would just as much counter your point.

That’s parochial, the Apple Store is global not just a US thing.

Folks, Apple has many faults and they’re certainly leaning on their position but don’t undermine your arguments with outrage comments

excuse me for my lack of Italian but is there any way you can find something in English or possibly outline what is happening?

I’ll quickly try: there are a handful of big supermarket chains - the article and the video reportage mention Coop, Conad, Gruppo Selex, Esselunga, Eurospin - that set prices and mandatory discounts. They essentially don’t compete, and fairness is only left to goodwill (e.g. Coop is historically tied to the Left and operates under a more worker-friendly CoC. In theory.)

Access to consumer markets is either via a looooong chain of small, inefficient and parasitic intermediaries or via the GDO, the logistics organizations of these few supermarket chains.

So the farmers are squeezed, they fall in debt and go bankrupt, or sell out to big landlords; and both tend to employ illegal immigrants under inhuman working conditions to meet the prices set by the aforementioned.

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