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Originally Posted by thinkxingu
Are there any examples of a business going corporate that have worked out positively for the consumer?
I think about this a lot, actually, as I was part of the Tweeter explosion...and downfall, and two of the central causes of its demise were bringing in "big box" retailer "specialists" to run what was never supposed to be a big box business and going public/being beholden to profit-driven shareholders over what was best for the company AND its customers.
*There's a book called The Common Good by Robert Reich that I find very interesting. In it, he points to where he thinks the shift occurred from "stakeholder" capitalism, where employees, ownership, AND customers find the perfect balance to "shareholder" capitalism, where the focus is on maximizing profit.
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For the most part, no. It seems we are shifting more and more towards "oligarchy" (can't think of a better word) at both the local and national level. At the local level near me, small family owned business like HVAC companies are being bought up and consolidated. I find it progressively harder and harder to get a plumber to come for small jobs; the rapport between customer and client has been lost. Motels/hotels are bought by larger chains. Housing is bought up by large scale investors. Car dealers are consolidated. Big media companies grow bigger (and seem to result in less service and higher prices) and Walmart and Amazon's bottom lines are boosted while locally owned business by me are closing.
Intentional or not, this is the direction we seem to have chosen to go both at the local and national level. My kids are navigating a different world than I did at their age. Back to the Lakes Region, I am doing everything I can to ensure the island property and lake access I was fortunate to grow up with will be preserved for them as the days of someone with my chosen career path (or theirs) buying island property on Winnipesaukee are pretty much gone. And back to Shep's specifically, since Goodhue bought them I have not seen better service or lower prices.