What a knee-jerk sensationalist review of the article. It makes a fair point about why some consumers like the stores, and others welcome its convenience. Is that some major controversy? In fact much of the article could be taken as positive (pro-capitalistic) review of their strategy, a case study in making lots of money the old fashioned way.
> "Count on customers ... not doing the math" with a quote that "admits" this, but not exactly. Messy way to explain it.
> "Center their entire business modal around this dependency" > Maps of low income areas
Meh. Any one of those (cept maybe strongarm) by themselves isn't remarkable. Together, it's reasonable to wonder about anti-capitalism (exploit the poor?) undertones, if you're senstive to that kind of thing. Calling that reaction a "knee-jerk sensationalist review" seems over-the-top to me.