It may simply not be legal for them to decide to drop customers just because they are, taken individually, unprofitable.
Think about an all-you-can-eat buffet. Some poor soul is gonna starve themselves so they can splurge and have a "good deal" on a lot of food. Most people will not, and the business would be in trouble otherwise. They still have to serve the patron who's eating a lot, because what kind of buffet would it be if it was "all you can eat, until you're eating so much that we're no longer making enough money"?
Or, some retailers sell items at a very low price, just to get people into the store in hope of them starting to buy more. Nothing stops you from getting into the store, getting the deal on those items and not buying anything else. The store may be losing money on you but they can't stop you from purchasing the item at the advertised price.
People who choose to spend their time and energy chasing deals to hyper-optimize the benefits on their credit card savings are entitled to their savings. Companies (credit cards or otherwise) are just interested in the total outcome of their operations anyway, not on making money off of every single customer. (Besides, even just defining what is a "profitable customer" is a hairy problem.)
And when it goes to court they usually lose. They can ban you in the future if they want, but they sold an "all you can eat" meal and are expected to provide that meal even if you're extra hungry.
Much like the Hetzner article, there's an obvious physical cap that can't be exceeded, and they're supposedly selling up to that cap.
I mean, if the people running the store can't profitably operate (due to theft or other factors), why should they operate?
Why should the owners of that supermarket go into ruin just to give you another shopping option? Why is it their responsibility to keep you fed at all?
In theory, neither the store or those in need would want to deal with the hassle of theft being the way to deal with the ruling. My guess is stories would just start giving food to the hungry as needed, and then past the costs onto the customers.
No they are saying that if you buy a meal, you should be able to package it up and sell it to someone else, which you can do. If I go buy a hamburger, I can walk right out onto the street and if someone else offers me money for it I can sell it. What I can't sell is access, which is what a buffet is, you're not paying for the individual item you're paying for access to the buffet.
Consumers can't consume if they don't have the money. Every time you fire someone and he can't get job for time X, you are reducing overall consumption during that time X.
Instead the money if concentrated in fewer hands and there is an upper limit to what a human can consume (e.g. a single rich person can't eat more than hundred middle class people).
Generally speaking, there are Good Samaritan laws that avoid that. The issue more often is that stores don't want to deal with the headaches that can stem from being a place for those who are unhoused to congregate for free food. It's rarely good for business.
In all free anything people who over-consume threaten the model for everyone. I hate that the end result is that nobody should have it. We're all subsidizing the extreme users and we should desire that those customers are fired.
All those rules at a buffet are just codifying ethics because the business has learned that it's stupid to trust people.
As a food consumer, there's no amount of "relationship" you can build with me. Your food is good or it isn't. If the food is good and priced well, I'll reward you with continued business.
I think this is more a problem of the business owner believing that remaining in business is a right, not a privilege.
A better example would be if a person came into a supermarket in the morning and bought all bread and milk so no one else would have any. It's legal,but most stores would probably have a policy against it.
It’s also discussed in the thread that other major retailer worldwide do the same thing.
You can choose to think that there are evil people intentionally choosing to throw the food away deriving happiness from others’ hunger. Or you can investigate the issue and determine that there is a good reason (aka probability and cost of liability is too high compared to throwing it away).
Retail businesses operate on razor thin margins where a few missteps would kill them, and it is pretty naive to think the professionals in that business do not know how to run their own business.
Right, but that's not due to what the chain wanted to do, but due to liability. Allow people to waive liability claims for past-due food, and this problem mostly goes away.
I remember working in a produce warehouse, and due to some clever particularities of our non-profit status, we were allowed to give away surplus produce to employees with no liability. I don't think we ever threw out anything except old bananas; it all got taken home.
By your logic, buying all food in a region, monopolizing it and then reselling it at a 1000% margin is fine, after all, that's the real market price now.
I get where you're coming from, but it's a morally bankrupt viewpoint, honestly. These kinds of actions are usually called profiteering, and while it works and is absolutely highly profitable, it's also easy to leave your humanity behind.
While this article (car) isn't quiet es problematic if scalped as it's essentially a luxury product, the argument you made to justify it would also apply to everything else, and that should tell you that the action itself is at the very least morally questionable.
And consumers can experiment with eating elsewhere.
This is a good example of dystopian capitalism run amok.
Next logical step --- they track those that fall for this and start charging them "surge" prices all the time. Then some accountant gets the bright idea that they can sell their "sucker list" to other like minded establishments.
And soon these "suckers" will find themselves branded for life. Where ever they go, they will be charged more.
any company can do this, its just that the more people who feed themselves in the food chain, the more likely it is someone will start a race to the bottom of profit taking.
Think about an all-you-can-eat buffet. Some poor soul is gonna starve themselves so they can splurge and have a "good deal" on a lot of food. Most people will not, and the business would be in trouble otherwise. They still have to serve the patron who's eating a lot, because what kind of buffet would it be if it was "all you can eat, until you're eating so much that we're no longer making enough money"?
Or, some retailers sell items at a very low price, just to get people into the store in hope of them starting to buy more. Nothing stops you from getting into the store, getting the deal on those items and not buying anything else. The store may be losing money on you but they can't stop you from purchasing the item at the advertised price.
People who choose to spend their time and energy chasing deals to hyper-optimize the benefits on their credit card savings are entitled to their savings. Companies (credit cards or otherwise) are just interested in the total outcome of their operations anyway, not on making money off of every single customer. (Besides, even just defining what is a "profitable customer" is a hairy problem.)
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