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Comment by bena | Hacker News Reader

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bena·

It's not limited to Black Friday items.

A lot of companies have general WalMart versions of products.

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For one good example, look at the Soundcore Boom 2 "SE" -- the "SE" is specific to Walmart, and has some features cut.

Back to denim, Walmart caries "Levi's Signature" -- those are lower cost (and lower quality) versions of the normal lines.

They have to because Walmart drives them so hard on price.

And fickle consumers drive Walmart. The blame for the race-to-the-bottom doesn't rest solely on corporations.

I don't know that I would call them fickle. Real wage growth hasn't happened (effectively) in at least 40 years. Of course people are going to be sensitive to price increases especially if the price increases faster than people's wages increase.

Yes, it lies chiefly on our government and regulatory authorities.

Governments exist to maintain a commons in the tragedy of the commons.

The market, as well as societal trust, is a commons. People in power make individuals responsible for the commons, which creates a collective action problem, which creates a structural incapability of addressing what is best for everyone, such as being able to trust merchants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem

They have to because Walmart has a monopoo-like position. They are so big they are easily able to coerce those they interact with.

Walmart has a $180bln revenue, how many states or even countries is that comparable to?

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