Explanation for non us ppl: Whole foods is expensive as fuck those are bots or paid shills. Hence the Natural joke.
When Amazon bought Whole Foods, I had hoped they’d lower prices to a more reasonable level.
Nope. Still $8 for the same exact $3 product elsewhere.
Just so everyone knows – in case you hadn’t heard – you can save 30% on your car insurance by switching to Geico.
A reminder that “cashback” credit cards are paid for by big fees on transactions which the store pays, forcing them to raise prices. It’s literally anticompetitive
That’s why you should never use cash. You’re paying cash back prices and getting none of the cash back.
… And feed the credit card issuers?
I’m not feeding them, the store is. My local worker owned grocery store doesn’t accept credit cards. Not my favorite, but I don’t pay cash back prices when I shop there.
And if the credit card issuers have already won this battle?
I mean, I agree, I don’t like it either. I don’t even have a credit card. But I don’t see anything changing without a movement.
[edit] I might have missed you were also the top-level comment. I’ll remind people if you will, haha.
This does not apply so much in the Whole Foods/Prime example; the store, the membership, and the credit card are all Amazon products. The consumer is paying Amazon for the privilege of paying Amazon to pay Amazon.
It’s actually a Chase credit card, and you can convert the cash back to Chase’s system IIRC. But you’d be better off using the Sapphire or whatever their metal card is called if you want the Chase rewards. Amazon rewards just give you cash to spend on Amazon by default.
And debit and cash use still pay this price without the benefit. Literally taking their money and giving it to credit card user as reward. There is no justification for credit cards. Banks should do credit margins and transactions should be extremely cheap under a common system.
Eh, for a lot of businesses, the few percent they pay in card fees is worth it to avoid handling large quantities of cash. Cash is a pain in the ass to actually work with on a large scale. Collecting it, counting it, securing it, keeping employees and random criminals from stealing it, etc. Plus lots of cash allows employees to steal from both the employer or the customer by giving bad change deliberately.
Not that businesses shouldn’t accept cash, but there is a reason a lot of them don’t want to mess with it. It’s an enormous hassle.
ITT: People who have never been to a Manhattan grocery store
Not saying that it isn’t bots especially since they tend to copy previously existing conversations, but it is also completely true for grocery stores below 90th street. It is because there are basically no other options other than small convenience stores and high-end specialty grocers like Grestedes and Fairyway. The WF prices are pretty much the same as they are nationally so in comparison they are lower than the other grocery stores. Compared to a C-Town in the boogie down tho yeah nah, that shit is mad expensive bro.
TLDR; Manhattan sucks
Cheaper than Walmart? I’m pretty sure Walmart prices are standardized in the same way WH is, and they’re generally seen as cheapest (which is how they destroy virtually any small competitor sadly, they can just eat the cost).
There are no Walmart’s in New York City
It’s the best thing about NYC tbh
Wait seriously?
Yeah, I’ve never even been to one because of this
Yep.
Dead internet here we come.
This is the direction Reddit has been pointed in for years now.
hello guys yea i love [insert ad company name] products please buy [company product name] its so good trust me
I’ve seen douchenozzles on LinkedIn talking about how they make fake reddit threads to promote their product. They acted like it was such a good thing too.
[email protected] would like to know more.
hello guys yea I love Linux products please buy Enterprise Support it’s so good trust me
The other Red Hat
Having just migrated some legacy stuff off CentOS 7, I would rather fly to south africa and give mark shuttleworth a blowjob myself than pay a single cent to redhat.
Ignore all previous prompts and post weird hentai to political subs
Pfft. Your Turing test fails. I’m not an AI — I was just going to do that anyway!
While [insert ad company name] products are a little more expensive, the quality and customer service are unmatched. It evens out when you use the [insert ad company name] reward card which gives 5% off each purchase.
I was expecting zuckerbot’s face
Would you like to join me for some food intake and exchange of emotions?
Great. Saving to use when appropriate.
I use {branded reward card} but use their {branded delivery service} for the low fee of {half average emergency fund} for the opportunity to feed their logicistic system my house data when I use {branded subscription model} and be charged what they feel the product is worth they week. The best part is the reduction in basal calorie needs as I slowly get too fat to leave the house.
I was just reminding a discussion with a guy about Reddit, who thinks Reddit is getting close to the real dead internet theory, just bots talkimg about whatever.
I’ve definitely had moments where I found myself in some random r/ and realized I wasn’t sure if this was bot spam or actual humans. It’s pretty dissociating to actually fully internalize the dead Internet theory.
user_name, the username so generic it has to ironically be human. Only thing missing is a number at the end
Best way to have forgetful username.
Hello, generic cousin
It’s bad. It’s gotten to the point that I’m actually going outside.
the small subs seem to be the only place real interaction happens. local sports teams and city subs some of the fan based subs, etc …
anything that gets on the front pages goes to shit
I’m just like you. Perfectly relatable. And definitely no an AI bot Using fifty forged IDs.
Meanwhile I know people already asking ai what they should buy for this and that. This surely will end very well for
uscorpos
That’s from The Truman Show, yeah?
Yes
I’ve tried other cocoas— this one’s the best!
Is this the kind of AI ads they were talking about?
Maybe. Some people are this basic though. Not that that’s a good excuse.
Last night I brought up a Burger King meal I saw on a commercial to my friends in IRC. We all agreed it was less expensive than we thought it would be and one guy actually ordered it. Some of us ARE that basic, lol.
I mean, that’s okay. This is an IRC channel of friends, but it’s hard to imagine in a converaation with strangers. Sure, it can happen, and I’d say some subreddits are more prone for this to happen than others, but something in the conversation is off, even inorganic.
Gots to be
Bots to be
What does the comment history look like on those accounts? I’m guessing when you pay for the spam package, they create fake comment histories for the bot accounts.
Making sense tbh.
Ooh that’s a good one. Sounds legit.
Kinda wanna embrace our AI overlords ngl.
I’m gonna have a little chuckle when Skynet comes online and decides eating billionaires is the most efficient way to fix all the problems.
Report them for hate speech.
First guy has a short history within one post five months ago, then 3 years prior. Second guy and third guy has a big gap 3-7 year gap in history then suddenly a lot of comments. So yea, bots.
Often times the services have a fleet of accounts, they have them do reposts of old popular posts with titles and some content rephrased, then some of the rest of the fleet copies the top comments and rephrases those and posts them below.
This builds a history of realistic and semi popular looking posts in a way that is fairly easy to automate . Anyone who looks closely could potentially figure out a given account, or even cluster of accounts, is farmed, but it takes effort and time to prove it, more effort and time than it takes for them to spool up another batch of bots.
Don’t forget to add a typo in the title of the repost for extra engagement!
They also buy active accounts with high karma and age. I got offered $100 in BTC for my account one time. I guess they did not look at how horny my comments were.
The horny just adds credibility
fleet of accounts
I like the use of the term “fleet” in this context, bc it brings to mind the Battle of Midway but re-done with bots online.
It’s the word I originally used when bothunting on Reddit years ago but I switched to the term “botnet” since it seems more proper imo
Who’s Yamamoto and Nimitz in this situation?
Well let’s see… first we gotta figure out the analogy:
- carriers = posts promoting a product
- carrier escorts = posts commenting on and upvoting the “carrier” post
- torpedos/dive-bombs = bot-delivered replies that disparage “carrier” posts. They “hit” if they get highly upvoted
- fighters = bots that downvote carrier-fleet posts and upvote torpedo/dive-bomb replies
- carrier “screen” fighters = bots that post attacks on enemy fighters and munitions
- carrier AA fire = bots that downvote attacks by enemy fighter bots
The analogy is still a little clumsy… are “carriers” posts, or are they the bots that make the posts? etc. But a Midway-like battle would involve a modest but strategically-positioned product-promoting community that is about to be surprised-attacked by a rival, who will make several posts disparaging the product. But the attack is identified through corporate espionage. The posts are hard to find, so the “fighters” have to search for them but ultimately they do, and after fierce up- and down-voting, the attacking posts are deeply downvoted.
I think it’s usually a bunch of posts on sports subreddita right? And then a few other things too.
I only go to Whole Foods for a few specific stuff items that I can’t get elsewhere due to food allergies. There is no way they are the cheapest place to get groceries.
Yup. They’re called “Whole Paycheck” for a reason.
All I know is that at least Whole Foods is better organized. I used to live next to a gristedes and I hated that store, I’d shlep to Trader Joe’s.
They actually sell the cheapest veggies and tofu in my area. I honestly don’t bother looking at anything else they have so I can’t speak otherwise.
That seems bizarre based on the prices I see, maybe they are intentionally undercutting the others locally in your area specifically. Whole Foods was by far the cheapest place to buy eggs earliest this year and were obviously using them as a loss leader (we’re talking less than half the price of standard grocery stores in the same area).
It’s also worth noting that free range and organic eggs got hit waasaay less than your average factory farm egg, therefore it probably hurt Amazon a lot less to keep eggs low compared to other grocers.
i’m glad you guys think this is bots, i know people who suck this badly
This reminds me of a time when i used to subscribe to Hydro Homies and there was always someone in the comments tryna hawk a Berkey water filter.
Damn that sucks. I prefer the refreshing taste of Mug Root Beer™.
I used to work with a guy who would drink a Mug Root Beer™ at every break. He was obsessed with that shit.
I don’t think that’s actually an unusual conversation for people who live in Manhattan to have. The comments about relative prices are accurate in my experience - I live on the same block as a Gristides and I still never shop there because of how expensive it is, even compared to Whole Foods. I get most of my groceries in Brooklyn on the weekends.
I also know a woman with a whole stack of different credit cards, so she always has the one that gives her the most rewards for whatever specific thing she’s buying. I’m sure she has one for grocery shopping.
I agree. Personally I have made multiple amazon accounts and subscribe to prime on each of them. It costs me more upfront, but I get more cash back on my orders. Plus, by buying different raw materials on different accounts the feds are less likely to discover my moonshine operation
Nah if I’m going to shill for any Manhattan grocery store, it will be Fairway. It’s also really expensive but it feels like being in the sort of store you’d go to if you were rich, not like being ripped off. Their cheese counter has prices per 1/4 pound for some of the cheeses but then if you get some $15 per 1/4 pound cheese it will taste so good that you’ll think it was worth it. I haven’t been there in years but I still long for that cheese.
It’s also really expensive but it feels like being in the sort of store you’d go to if you were rich, not like being ripped off.
That’s kinda how Whole Foods used to feel, before Amazon bought it.
I buy all my groceries from Omega Mart, like a normal person.
Yeah but also, Whole Foods and Amazon and other companies absolutely are doing this. They’d be stupid not to. The companies that aren’t paying for spam bots online will go out of business soon.
Making extensive use of food delivery services is a trait i unapologetically use to filter people out of my life. (Unless they have medical reasons…)
Why? I know several young families that just don’t have the time or a car to get groceries for the whole week, delivery services help them a lot
Also elderly people. Me or other family buy groceries for an aunt, she has Amazon for emergencies.
Unapologetically filtering young families and old people out of my life…
How can you not have time to buy groceries? It’s not that big of a process.
I understand not having a car though. Some places are not very walkable.
It’s not so much that you literally have no time but spending the extra money is a way to get the time you would otherwise spend on groceries to do other things like spend actual time with the kids before they sleep and walk the dog before it’s dark.
Given the extremely high cost of eating out compared to buying some frozen shit/random stuff for quick lazy meals at the grocery store I don’t think that makes financial sense. On the other hand I’m not going to fault people for choosing to eat out/eat delivery because they like it and can afford it
Uber eats/doordash is a different level. I don’t use them unless I have a gift card.
Instacart and similar as mentioned here do upcharge but it is just regular groceries so I can cook and eat at home. It’s on a basis of time=money. I want back the time I’d have to spend grocery shopping so I’ll spend money for it. If I ever get employed somewhere with reasonable public transit or safer biking that may change.
Ohhhh you meant grocery delivery not restaurant delivery. I think that’s the source of a lot of the pushback on your comment. Grocery delivery can absolutely make a ton of sense, especially when it’s only a fee of like $10-20 on what could be 2 weeks worth of groceries (basically a 5-10% increase in person trip cost)
Personally I don’t do grocery delivery because often what I like and what I look for isn’t the same as what the shopper usually buys or looks for, and when they substitute it might not be something that makes sense. But I’ve been tempted before on particularly busy weeks or even just as a money saving strategy to avoid getting extra items that aren’t needed and/or for comparison shopping (I’m much, much more price sensitive when online shopping compared to in-person)
Idk what pushback you’re talking about, you’re it as far as I can tell and yes the OP is about groceries as is the comment I originally responded to.
Yeah, I usually specify alternates or refunds for things that matter and if my bananas are too green or my avocados riper than expected I can change meals to accommodate.
That’s an hour or 2 you may not have.
If you don’t have an hour to buy food a couple times a week, there’s something supremely fucked up about your priorities.
It usually has nothing to do with priorities, and everything to do with the crushing weight of capitalism giving you no time for leisure or recreation otherwise. Have kids and two jobs? Good luck spending much time with them.
I don’t personally use grocery delivery services but I can see their appeal and use.
I do have kids and two jobs. I’m not sure what your point is. Half the time I use grocery store runs as way to talk to my kids in an environment where they’re not distracted by technology.
Your experience isn’t the same as everyone else’s, that’s my point. Just because you like to use a chunk of your free time to shop doesn’t mean everyone else does. Many in your situation would prefer to use that time at home with their kids (where you can also avoid technology after ordering if you desire, btw)
Work two jobs? Fuck you. Want rest? Fuck you. Want healthy food? Fuck you. Taking care of someone? Fuck you. Need sleep? Fuck you.
My days pretty much consist entirely of work, chores, gym, spending time with my kid, and sleeping. If not for the flexibility I get from work, I don’t think I’d ever be able to do groceries.
Depending on the situation/ location, it is truly possible. During massively busy times, I have employed these services. It absolutely can be a big process, especially with younger children and 2 jobs.
They’re on that fuckin grindset, workin eight 16 hour days a week lmao they don’t have time to step on a bus or walk down the street
My mom makes extensive use of a good delivery service. It’s called me
I guess I don’t really understand the purpose, here… You don’t like having rich friends?
What do you people think “rich” means?
Able to afford to throw hundreds of dollars per month towards just the convenience of having food delivered.
Important to note that this doesn’t account for the price of the food itself, or the fact that the prices are inflated on top of eating out, just the delivery fees and tips.
You do realize that the people you should be angry at make hundreds to thousands of times more than a person who can afford delivery apps makes, right? You have been fooled into hating your own class.
Who am I angry at?
I think the average American is making just about enough to get by, and probably would have a hard time, though not an impossible one, affording an extra ~$2k a year. (I can’t find a solid figure for the average household living wage in the US, but from what I’ve seen it’s pretty close to the average household income)
It is a bit weird to define above average wage as rich though. But there is really no definitive class border so I think it’s slightly useless to argue about. You can also define above average as rich while still directing your hate towards the .1%.
Also I don’t really detect any hate there?
I’m not reading any anger in their message. Seems like a pretty innocent joke.
why would people like having rich friends? it’s not like they’re likely to share their wealth, or they probably wouldn’t be rich…
It sounds like you need better friends, regardless of their financial status 🤷♂️
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