Knightfox

I mean, Rovinj is as much the sticks as my town, it's just old and on the water. There's almost nothing there and it's only popular as a tourist destination. According to Wikipedia cars are the primary form of transportation outside the area in this picture and it's quite far from anything else. Also according to wikipedia much of the small businesses in this area shut down in the off season since it's mostly a beach tourist area. The closest major city is Pula (population 52k) which is 45 min from Rovinj. In comparison the largest city in my state is 25 min away and it alone has 20% of the population of the entire country of Croatia. All that said and living in old town Rovinj is less attainable to Croatians than my example is to Americans living in my area.

Sometimes it's just an inconvenience. This gas station is located in a rural town in the foothills of Tennessee which is at the convergence of two major highways. This appears to be the only truck stop within 20-30 min in any direction. The drivers could pull into a normal gas station or just pull off the road, but the roads and parking lots in this area aren't really designed for vehicles of this size.

Some aspect of it is certainly over demanding bosses and workaholic drivers, but another part of it is just not wanting to bother with finding a place to pull over without going out of the way. Also, it never seems to be as simple as just pulling over to use the restroom. You have to pull off the highway, go down the ramp, if you're lucky the gas station is right there at the exit, but if not you might have a short couple min driving. By the time you've gotten off the road, found a place to go, got your truck parked in a normal parking lot, and went in to actually use the restroom a lot of time passes. Probably 15-30 min per stop.

Because it is! Looking online it looks like prices in this area are around €250k for a 400-600 sqft apartment. It looks like land just outside of this area goes for ~€200k for 0.2 acres, houses go for around €500k - 1.5mil, and townhomes go for around €200k. Rents in the area are fairly affordable at ~€475 per month (one bedroom city center) but the average salary is only ~€950 per month. Also the population is only ~15k.

The person who made the post in the image is comparing apples to oranges. My small-ish US town has a population of 10k and you can get 3 acres of land and a 2000 sq ft house for $250k. Gas station and grocery store are 10 min down the road by car. The average monthly wage is $3400 in this town.

Basically, the average person in the pictured town would need 22 years of their full salary to pay for a townhome while the average person in my town only needs 6 years of their full salary. The American mind may not be able to comprehend this picture, but it's not like most Croatians can live there either.

I completely agree with your sentiment, but I still wouldn't report them. If the odds of them being a parent in need is 10% I'd still look the other way. Shoplifting from a multi-hundred billion dollar business barely feels like theft to me. If that theft is for drug addicts and unfortunate parents I'm not gonna complain.

Now if they're stealing jewelery or other non-necessities I'll point that out, but when it comes to things like baby formula and diapers I didn't see shit.

Edit: In an ideal world baby formula and diapers would be universally free or at least as free and accessible as condoms at many health provider locations. Maybe at Walmart chargers transportation costs while planned parenthood is completely free. Either way we shouldn't be fretting about these things. I feel like this is something the left and right should be able to agree on.

That's pretty much my life as well, any local stores that were decent went under 20 years ago. Anything left is a specialty store or boutique that costs 20% more. Sometimes they're worth the added price, but not for many things.

Never had a package get stolen before, but if I ordered something expensive I have it sent to the Amazon locker about 5 min away. Last year I needed an ironing board, I went to Walmart, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Roses. The only ironing board I found was at Bed Bath and Beyond for $120. I bought my ironing board on Amazon for $25 and it arrived the next day, also I didn't have to pay shipping because of prime. I have prime, but I cut Netflix when I got it. Now I get my packages faster, with free shipping, and I get Prime Video.

Recently I bought a new foam mattress and they brought it to my house, unboxed it, put it on the bed frame, and took the old one away. This cost me $200 and I had free shipping with Prime.

Hate on Amazon all you want, there are plenty of reasons, but they're doing the business better than big box stores which had already driven most small businesses out years ago.

So would the business just not make the food until you show up with your ID or do they throw away orders for people who don't have a matching ID? Also, what about people who don't have an ID at all?

Well yes... that's what I have done, the problem is the other 99% of the customer base who continues to be stupid. It's like when people say "stop preordering games" before the release of the next AAA game, but then it has record preorder sales and hundreds of complaints about it being an unfinished piece of crap. The customer base at large is too stupid to stop feeding the problem.

Yeah, spot on. There was a local pizza pub I used to frequent that would always get upset because door dash and grub hub would add their business without permission. The place offered delivery (pizza duh), but hated third party delivery because it took business away from their drivers (you kinda want a critical mass of business to justify having delivery) and they often had customers call in to complain that their order/deal/special was wrong. I remember the manager would look on delivery sites each week and call any that had listed the business without their permission.

I think the bigger gripe is less that there are subscriptions and more that they have gotten out of hand. In general the fragmentation of services as businesses try to get a piece of the pie. Monopolies aren't great, but regulated monopolies have some benefits.

Some examples: Netflix used to have a wide variety of backlog material, they had a cheap subscription and replaced the video rental stores. As streaming and subscriptions became more of a thing businesses stopped allowing that content on Netflix because they wanted to do it themselves. Now you need 2-3 subscriptions for the same benefit that old Netflix had. I dropped all mine except for Amazon, I don't want 3 streaming subscriptions.

Ubisoft and many other game companies decided to take their content off of Steam because they felt they weren't getting enough from Valve. They split off and made their own equivalents, but the benefit of Steam is not having multiple launchers. I'd rather not play a game than have to have their brand specific launcher & account.

I don't have a "right" to free content, but i still feel that the direction of the market has made the content and consumption of said content worse.

Not the person you replied to, but there is a sit down burger bar near me that I quite enjoy. This place is popular with third party deliveries. I like to go, sit at the bar, and have a burger and beers. I stopped going to the place because every time I go the bar is full of delivery drivers waiting on food to be ready for delivery. We're talking probably 20 orders per hour. I don't so much mind the delivery people, but they come and go so frequently, they often lurk about because they want to get going, and they distract the bartender so she can't do her job well.

The business is making more money by having more sales, but the impact on the dine in experience is so terrible that their delivery gains are likely muted by the loss of dine in business. The only thing corporate sees at the end of the day is that there were more sales transactions which means they made more money, they don't see the business they lost by having a poor dine in experience.

Actually some third party companies will list businesses even if the business doesn't offer delivery, so long as they have online ordering. The only solution would be to not allow take out of any kind.