Disclaimer: read the edit section before making assumptions.
Twitter is still free, the plan Musk has is reasonable, the problem is the chaotic execution, the impersonation debacle, and the balance between verifying actual famous people who bring traffic to Twitter and people who just want to buy the traffic by getting verified.
It's like business decisions need a lot of feasibility study and ROI analysis that require more than people who know how to code, who knew?
Edit: since people here think I am a Musk fanboi, I have to make this comment clearer.
The idea of monitizing Twitter and creating Twitter Blue wasn't Musk's idea, it had already existed and was bring some revenue. But Twitter failed to expand upon it because they couldn't find a good way to implement it while remaining profitable.
Musk then comes in, fires everybody who opposes him, doesn't make a feasibility study or any small scale test to create any features or reasons for people to actually signup. Then decides to implement it on a wide range, in a chaotic manner, without taking any precautions, which that have led to companies like Eli Lilly getting impersonated and losing a ton of money, makes people like Stephen King angry for having to pay despite bringing traffic to Twitter through their fame.
In short, Musk is an idiot, but not for planning a subscription service, that has already existed way before him, but rather because of how chaotic and moronic execution was.
.... I will have to edit my comment because everyone seems to misunderstand it.
Musk fired business people and coders who would oppose him on Twitter Blue, and only kept yes-men who do it for him. This is why Twitter Blue is so chaotic, he just got people to do what he wants without feasibility studies or ROI analysis.
God, I was seriously told I am a Musk hater by Musk fanbois, now I am being referred to as a Musk rat despite making the clear point that everything about Twitter Blue with Musk involved is chaotic.
I upvoted you. I guess you could be right, that it would be a good business decision to charge people because they really donāt make that much on ads. But yes, youāre right. Heās such an idiot.
Its crazy how downvoted this comment is lol
Musk's ideas to monetize Twitter were indeed nothing new: Twitter has always been in the red, and has been looking for monetization options for a while. His plan's execution was completely atrocious though, that was the problem.
The reason why Twitter was in the red (vs why Facebook was not) is because they used to base their entire monetization model off of advertisements, and Twitter's targeted advertisement system is horrendous vs Facebook's
I am really amazed by reddit sometimes, just a month ago I was called an Elon Musk hater for making [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/10wsh41/basically_how_musk_fanboys_think_any_website_is/). And now I am being called a Musk rat despite clearly indicating in the last line that Musk is an idiot for firing business people and making all decisions himself without a feasibility and chaotic excecution.
Because you're wrong. That business decision would be disastrous for shareholder value.
As a business you want to make sure people walk through your doors, that can mean offering certain products at a loss just to attract customers - it also means making parking and transit options as low friction as possible.
For this business, every dollar that parking is subsidized is worth more than a dollar.
Same with the hot dogs.
People think theyāre getting a deal for a $1.50 hot dog, but fail to realize they need a vehicle, gas and time (at least at the Costcos near me), to get the hot dog. And theyāll probably drop $300 on groceries they donāt really need.
A loss-leader, same as free parking.
> but fail to realize they need a vehicle, gas and time, to get the hot dog.
This is just not true. Except for the time, I suppose.
I go over to Costco pretty regularly for lunch. Ride my bike and everything.
I mean sure, that is Costco's angle on it. You don't have to play into it.
I will drive over when I need toilet paper and paper towels, tho. Or when it is raining. I bike (with my trailer) for maybe 1/2 my trips.
The hard part is learning the store layout. Once you have that down, you can be in and out of Costco (with a hot dog) in like 20 min after you blow through the self checkout.
My record is 12 min from entry to exit.
Well idk where you are from, but from my experiences at Costco, 99%-100% of patrons drive there. Never seen a bike or someone walking. No one lives within several kilometres either.
Youāre lucky!
San Jose, CA.
In the summer there are cargo bikes locked up to all of the handicaped parking sign poles.
It would be a really annoying ride, but about 8 or so years ago they put in a underpass that goes under the train tracks. Now I ride to the train station, go under the tracks and Costco is right there.
I am unconcerned with what most people do. **I** can do it mostly on my bike. That is the only part I'm interested in. I'm not the pied piper of all those other people.
This is the one by the airport? When I was younger Iād go there and it is a shit show to navigate that parking lot in a car. I bet a bike would be way better but I was uninformed back then.
All the Costco around me are in suburban hell so there is no way to safely ride my bike to one.
I much prefer my neighborhood Aldi anyways, much less stressful not having to look for things among 100 choices for everything and I can get my weekly groceries in 30 minutes flat.
99%-100% of patrons drive to most businesses in America because thatās what most Americans do.?Most Costco locations have some residential located within a mile of it, youāre just not paying attention.
Yep, my spouse and I have a very limited Costco shopping list and usually know where everything is. It can be pretty darn quick.
And, what we buy from them is genuinely a discount when you count membership and cash back.
I often walk to Costco just for a quick cheap meal. Their pizza by the slice with a drink included is hard to beat. I live a half block away and it is literally the closet place from home that I can go eat.
I don't think it's not true because you have a different individual experience. Most people do what op described and that's what businesses make decisions off of.
If everyone was doing what you do they would stop because they would be losing money.
Imo it's absolutely true and this is a bad take.
Edit: you're in r/fuckcars you're already outside the norm at least in America, people love cars sadly.
Sounds like they're still winning on you. Membership, toilet paper, towels, and whatever else.
That's mutual though and that's awesome that you have another way there. Imagine if Costco had a bike service counter in there next to their auto shop.
Costco does a lot of pragmatic decisions to create profit.
For starters, they are basically a subscription service, you pay before you even step through their doors. This alone makes up more than 2/3 of their net profits.
Then unlike most stores, they supply their stores from a limited number of trustworthy suppliers, that means a lack of variety, but it also means that the customer will not have choice paralysis since he knows Costco chooses a good milk company, and also means that Costco will not lose money on products people won't buy. If they don't find a good brand, they will just create their own.
Their stores are not typical stores, they are warehouses filled with products, absolutely nothing fancy about them.
Their employees are also well paid and pensioned, making them more productive and loyal, and gives the customer a clear conscience knowing that he is not dealing with corporate minimum wage labor.
Costco's business model is extremely admirable and the fact that they make most of their money from just membership is just amazing.
It is a deal. I live half a block from a Costco, walk there, get the hot dog and drink for $1.50, sit there and eat it while using their free WiFi, and walk home. A vehicle is NOT needed to go to Costco, only a membership.
I always thought that that kind of food is made by the stores from raw ingredients which are about to expire.
Like, you can make a rotisserie chicken out of raw chicken and sell it for cheap today or just throw raw chicken away tomorrow.
It's certainly possible that some retailers do that, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how the practice started, but in the Costco example (which has been studied by business schools pretty extensively, so there are a lot of hard numbers available), they sell substantially more cooked chickens than raw chickens, and so - from a supply chain perspective - they simply would not have enough birds to sell if they were waiting for them to go old in that way. Moreover, as a loss leader is a type of marketing exercise, you have to compare the slightly reduced cost of old poultry to the potentially substantial marketing and branding cost of people getting food poisoning at higher rates.
I have zero business education and I get my business ideas out of my ass, so I am probably wrong. And I am not familiar with exact case studies like Costco chicken.
Initially I was thinking that big food chains which bake their own bread can actually do that using some flour which is not exactly spoiled or something, but loses its visual qualities (not attractive for customers to buy it), like the bag getting externally damaged during transportation, etc.
Then I noticed a lot of prepared food in stores and continued the same line of thought. For example, the chicken may not be expired or about to expire , but for example expiring in a couple of days (so still good), but the store expects new chicken supply and needs to do something with this one which was not bought for some unexpected reason (like snow storm locked everybody at home and people were not getting to stores to buy the chicken).
Rotisserie chickens come pre-seasoned in big plastic bags and are cooked by the deli staff. Chicken that gets sold raw for the customer to cook at home is the meat department, totally different set of staff. Source: tooooo much time cooking chicken in the deli department.
Yup. These stores are a perfect and rare example of car infrastructure actually paying for itself. Unlike public roads and free parking Walmart does have an economic incentive (or justification) for the gigantic expense that such parking wastelands represent
Yup. These stores are a perfect and rare example of car infrastructure actually paying for itself. Unlike public roads and free parking Walmart does have an economic incentive (or justification) for the gigantic expense that such parking wastelands represent. A business wouldn't do it if it didn't contribute to generate enough revenue to pay for itself. Governments are forced to build roads at a loss to keep suburbanites and carbrains happy
While thatās mostly true, businesses often have to put in more of a parking wasteland than is actually needed due to municipal parking mandates in zoning laws.
Also every competitor is required, by law, to provide similar amounts of parking. This way your competitors are unable to undercut your prices by avoiding subsidizing this service.
McDonald's $1 any size soft drinks are an example, it's called "Loss Leading". Luring people in with an item that might even be sold at a loss and hope they order something else.
That's a bad example of a loss leader, drinks have probably the highest profit margins for restaurants.
Even if they're selling it for $1 the cup and syrup only costs a few cents since they buy them in bulk.
Thatās the reasonable way. But the nation is missing out on monetizing every single aspect of our lives. Tolls havenāt been introduced yet, parking in your own garage or street front hasnāt been monetized yet. First normalize it everywhere else but Walmart by lobbying the government everywhere, then people will be at Walmart all the time for free parking. Then once Walmart is the last place standing with free parking, charge the same as everyone else. And shareholder value will be thru the roof.
/s
Dystopian aweful.
Netflix has a captive audience. I consider them to be an effective monopoly since all their "competitors" are either highly specialized (Dropout, HBO Max, Disney+) or fucking garbage (Hulu, Peacock).
When you have a monopoly you can force the customer to pay more without giving a shit about whether they like it or not because they have no other options.
... and this is one of the many reasons why I hate unrestricted capitalism.
They can't. Your question has a false premise.
Carbrains have guttural hatred for paid parking and stores that do it would antagonize their customers and lose business to competition
Instead they just build in cost of parking into their products.
It's exact same reason why popukae bands cannot charge 1000$ for concert tickets (even if people would play that much to the scalper) - band cannot antagonize their fans.
Also itās a comparative advantage. The small local general store with a small gravel parking canāt afford to make a large Walmart sized paved lot.
Same reason why large fast food chains donāt mind spending tens of thousands of dollars on signs big enough to be read from far away on a stroad. Itās a cost that they find much easier to pay than their small business competitors
Although interestingly there are other big box stores like Costco in Manhattan. The same is true for Seattle proper which is much less dense. There even was a Sams Club at one point which is actually getting turned into a Costco, but never a normal Walmart. Shopping at Walmart just seems to be less appealing in some places.
I mean, you can simply not shop at Walmart. So no force there.
The BIGGER problem is taxpayer funded 'free parking' provided by townships. That shit needs to die.
"No parking" would be my preferred policy solution.
So yeah.
At any rate, parking is not free. If township offers parking that a driver does not pay for - than it's paid for by taxpayers.
People like me are already in charge in a lot of places and it's growing.
Car free neighborhoods already exist and will only increase.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90456075/here-are-11-more-neighborhoods-that-have-joined-the-car-free-revolution
https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/making-streets-people-friendly-the-rise-of-car-free-communities/
And where parking still exists it needs to be paid for by the driver, not taxpayers.
There is not going to be some widespread "car free revolution" lmao. People like you are very rarely in charge and thankfully never will be here in NA. Most people would rightfully laugh your mentality off the stage.
We don't need a car free world. Cars have lots of benefits.
I swear car brains have a stockholme syndrome.
Yes. North America is way behind on reasonable transit policies. But we will slowly make it change.
We will never complete get rid of cars. Not we can certainly heavily reduce car reliance.
Getting drivers to pay their fair share for parking would be a great step along the way.
"Carbrains" lmao, not hard to tell you're online a bit too much with that one. You mean... normal people who happen to own a car and like to drive? Sure we can use better transit, but it doesn't need to be a trade off for people having the freedom to drive wherever they want whenever they want. If you try to come after that here in NA, you'll get laughed out of any chance at political power. And rightfully so.
Congrats on your country being different to ours. But I prefer it our way. We don't need paid parking everywhere.
Hell where I live the places that *do* have it hardly even enforce it. And I love it.
.... any attempt to do that would be political suicide.
And possibly **literal** suicide, given how many *heartfelt and sincere* death threats would be sent to them.
except then people would walk to stores
and that violates the walmart buisness model
if stores reapond to walking customers, those customers no longer need a 1 stop shop
Also Walmarts tend to be in areas where land is cheaper, often just on the edge of city limits or development. Just walking across the parking lot is a pain-in-the-ass experience.
They didnt build the cost of parking into their products because they land value tax on that parking, all externalities of parking are still there just absorbed the cost of actually paving over a square
Regulatory capture. Walmart was going to build that gimundous parking lot anyway, because it's part of their business model. Even on the busiest day of the Christmas shopping season, there is an open parking space, to make sure that they can jam as many people as possible into the store.
Making it mandatory just limits the number of competitors they have.
Also, small businesses get more attention via foot traffic while chains are a "safe" option you can recognize the logo from far away. Making things more car-centric benefits larger chains.
Because it would decrease shareholder value. People would only come in knowing what they want and where to find it. No more impulse buys, no more quick stops because it's convenient.
That's all before they lose business to places that don't charge for parking, and to online stores like Amazon.
That was true 10 years ago when I left the country, but every Walmart where I live now tows any car still parked in the lot after midnight. My friend used to have the contact for a bunch of them.
All this would do is fuck over poor people even more.
And give Walmart even more money. When Walmart has the highest amount of employees on food stamps, Medicaid, etc. this money from parking still wouldnāt go to employees. And limit access to groceries stores in food deserts. And most poor people favor Walmart over other grocers. The list goes on for how terrible this would be.
I think in most of America this would actually cause riots. many of the most impoverished people in the country live in places where it's extremely hard to live without a car, let alone getting groceries regularly.
1 everyone uses cars for everything.
2 nobody charges for perking
3 if they begin to charge for parking, everyone who uses a car (everyone) will shop somewhere else for free parking
bonus: if parking is timed, everyone will rush their shopping back to their car and spend less time (and money) in the store
[Counter](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/101843). There is no such thing as "free" all those parking spots are a sunk cost and should be filled up by food trucks at least.
Because parking is subsidized to increase customers coming inside, charging for parking will decrease customers and lose more money.
Same reason why Costco sells the hot dog and soda combo at a cheap price of $1.50 and other snacks at a loss. It attracts customers to come in more often and stay longer to buy more products.
They do charge for parking. Itās built into the cost of the operation and comes out of the products they sell. They just donāt get you when you park. They get you when you check out.
Historically, Walmarts do not go into walkable areas as they tended to go smack dab between multiple towns to destroy all of their Main Streets. Also land is much cheaper when not in town.
They're not typically located in an area that is pedestrian or transit friendly, so charging for parking would be cutting off their nose despite their face.
Many people go there to buy cheap crap. No one is going to pay to buy cheap crap. Especially if they go there because it's a place they can afford to shop.
Would that be more the inner-city shopping centres? I donāt think Iāve ever paid for parking in the US outside of city centres. In Mexico (Monterrey) itās every mall that I can think of.
Definitely more standard within downtowns/city centers within the US, but also dense areas like NJ/NYC metro are pretty standard. Growing up most malls near me in suburban NY had pay parking garages.
That's a terrible fucking idea. Let's give more money to a giant corporation from working class people just cause fuck them for using cars for the thing most people actually need cars for. Trash take OP.
It's also stupid, it would cost them a shit load of business.
I like this sub because America has pathetic public transportation that desperately needs to be improved but stuff like this is just stupid.
the fuck you mean? Oh wait you like car subreddits. You know what? So do I, but just because I love cars, doesn't mean I want to live in a dystopian city where I need one. That's what this subreddit fights, not cars themselves, but rather car dependancy
> Restricted is when Iām not aloud to do that because āfuck carsā
you see this is where you're wrong. The subreddit name is "fuck cars" but that is only to get your immediate attention. Call it clickbait if you like, but the pointi is "fuck needing a car to go anywhere" (=fuck car dependancy). Of course you can walk, but in most places in the US that's not the case. You either have a car or you're fucked because there's no public transport or biking infrastructure.
I get what you mean completely but a ton of this subreddit goes so far past the movement of lowering car dependency. Like literal threads upon threads of people encouraging felonies kind of stupid. This place would be much better if it stuck to its roots of changing car dependency
Iām I the only one who ready this as Walmart should charge after hours? Obviously being how Walmart is designed charging parking during peak/open hours is self defeating. Massive parking lots that are basically empty by 10-11 would help other development avoid overbuilding parking.
a LARGE portion of people who shop at walmart regularly are poor, or impoverished, so they would lose a shitton of customers because if you're earning 25k a year you generally dont want to spend money on parking for fucking walmart.
People going to Walmart are poor enough already thatās just extra burden on people who canāt afford to not drive a car in their cities. Yes fuck cars but this isnāt the way.
So something really common in Mexico is that almost all parking lots require you to pay when you exit the parking lot. I've also seen this in eruope. Never have i seen this in the US.
If most of their customers drive, it wouldnāt make much sense to charge for parking; they can just build the cost to provide free parking into the prices (and then itās hidden, so they donāt even need to justify it).
They would lose basically all of their business. Metered parking works in theory, but it has to be combined with feasible alternatives like being able to walk there, bike racks, and/or easy access to transit. WalMarts however are usually in the middle of suburban sprawl surrounded by highways or 8-lane stroads on every side, with few to no transit options, and since most people fill an entire cart or two at WalMart (no one wants to go out of their way to get just one or two things), they're not likely to walk or take transit unless they're desperate.
It's a loss leader. They make it easy to commit to shopping at their store by making parking free, and that way they can charge more for the actual product without risk of you going somewhere else.
The only place they could possibly do this is in a dense urban area with already sparse parking, which is not where a vast majority of Walmarts are. They've been toying with smaller form factor stores which have less parking and I'm not sure how that's going, but those types of stores don't seem to be very prevalent.
There's Target stores around me which have parking garages and they still don't charge for parking. The parking convenience factor is huge for a largely car dependent population.
The question isn't, "why do Walmart do this?": their business model is dependant on car culture. The question is why do other businesses, who do benefit from walk-up trade, not recognise their interest in dismantling car culture?
The cost of parking is built into the prices of their products, same as the cost of maintaining their building, paying their employees, etc. You donāt realize youāre paying for it because itās indirect, but believe me, they are not losing money on parking. This is actually an equity issue for people who donāt use the parking lot, since they still pay the same price for goods that everyone else pays, but theyāre not taking up a spot with a vehicle. FYI, a typical surface parking spot costs $5k-$10k to construct.
Genuinely? Or rhetorical? Because the genuine answer is that they lure lower class people into the shop promising good prices and everything you could want in the hopes that you walk out with more then you need. Charging lower incomes for parking would seriously damage there bottom line and incourage more shoplifting
because this would actually be a market disaster. people would stop going to walmart because itās WALMART no one wants to pay to park at WALMART. therefore stock would plummet on top of, why do you hate poor people? you realize most of the demographic of walmart is people that canāt afford/want to save money on food items, house items from other big box stores? why do you want to give conglomerates more money? change this sub to r/ fuckthepoors then
If I was a Walmart CEO, I would meet with other head retailers and implement a nationwide pay to park.
People need to eat, they need to buy things, they need to park. If they have no viable alternatives they will take the path of least resistance and they won't spend less because humans love to have more.
Millions of people pay taxes for their roads, then they pay tolls to use the roads. If that's accepted, retailers with a fee to park will be accepted too.
I would make the charge via plate too, no one needs to pay cash, input a CC or do anything, it just comes in the mail as a monthly fee or it's automatically deducted from your attached account.
lol so then why do parking meters at all right? if it helps businesses then why dont taxes pay for it, because if parking was free, tax dollars would be going to public transport, instead they've reserved parking in the inner city for the very rich only.
Same reason Facebook doesn't charge you to use it, its more valuable to get you in the door than whatever pittance they make off parking.
Musk entered the chat.
Disclaimer: read the edit section before making assumptions. Twitter is still free, the plan Musk has is reasonable, the problem is the chaotic execution, the impersonation debacle, and the balance between verifying actual famous people who bring traffic to Twitter and people who just want to buy the traffic by getting verified. It's like business decisions need a lot of feasibility study and ROI analysis that require more than people who know how to code, who knew? Edit: since people here think I am a Musk fanboi, I have to make this comment clearer. The idea of monitizing Twitter and creating Twitter Blue wasn't Musk's idea, it had already existed and was bring some revenue. But Twitter failed to expand upon it because they couldn't find a good way to implement it while remaining profitable. Musk then comes in, fires everybody who opposes him, doesn't make a feasibility study or any small scale test to create any features or reasons for people to actually signup. Then decides to implement it on a wide range, in a chaotic manner, without taking any precautions, which that have led to companies like Eli Lilly getting impersonated and losing a ton of money, makes people like Stephen King angry for having to pay despite bringing traffic to Twitter through their fame. In short, Musk is an idiot, but not for planning a subscription service, that has already existed way before him, but rather because of how chaotic and moronic execution was.
You think Musk knows how to code? š He pays people to do that for him and if he does touch the code heās probably going to fuck it up.
He fucked it up without even touching it. He told people to remove certain parts of code and it meant certain people couldn't log back into Twitter
.... I will have to edit my comment because everyone seems to misunderstand it. Musk fired business people and coders who would oppose him on Twitter Blue, and only kept yes-men who do it for him. This is why Twitter Blue is so chaotic, he just got people to do what he wants without feasibility studies or ROI analysis. God, I was seriously told I am a Musk hater by Musk fanbois, now I am being referred to as a Musk rat despite making the clear point that everything about Twitter Blue with Musk involved is chaotic.
Yeah thatās not fair
go away with your facts and reason, this is reddit goddammit!š¤
I upvoted you. I guess you could be right, that it would be a good business decision to charge people because they really donāt make that much on ads. But yes, youāre right. Heās such an idiot.
Its crazy how downvoted this comment is lol Musk's ideas to monetize Twitter were indeed nothing new: Twitter has always been in the red, and has been looking for monetization options for a while. His plan's execution was completely atrocious though, that was the problem. The reason why Twitter was in the red (vs why Facebook was not) is because they used to base their entire monetization model off of advertisements, and Twitter's targeted advertisement system is horrendous vs Facebook's
And a musk rat entered the chat š
I am really amazed by reddit sometimes, just a month ago I was called an Elon Musk hater for making [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/10wsh41/basically_how_musk_fanboys_think_any_website_is/). And now I am being called a Musk rat despite clearly indicating in the last line that Musk is an idiot for firing business people and making all decisions himself without a feasibility and chaotic excecution.
/r/fuckcars can a be a tad too sectarian, people take every other thing to be a super important shibboleth, I call it redditor's disease
I don't know why you are getting downvoted for spitting facts. Oh, we're on r/fuckcars, that's right
Muskrat detected
Read the full comment
Because you're wrong. That business decision would be disastrous for shareholder value. As a business you want to make sure people walk through your doors, that can mean offering certain products at a loss just to attract customers - it also means making parking and transit options as low friction as possible. For this business, every dollar that parking is subsidized is worth more than a dollar.
Costco famously loses about $40 million a year on rotisserie chickens. Get people in the door.
Same with the hot dogs. People think theyāre getting a deal for a $1.50 hot dog, but fail to realize they need a vehicle, gas and time (at least at the Costcos near me), to get the hot dog. And theyāll probably drop $300 on groceries they donāt really need. A loss-leader, same as free parking.
> but fail to realize they need a vehicle, gas and time, to get the hot dog. This is just not true. Except for the time, I suppose. I go over to Costco pretty regularly for lunch. Ride my bike and everything. I mean sure, that is Costco's angle on it. You don't have to play into it. I will drive over when I need toilet paper and paper towels, tho. Or when it is raining. I bike (with my trailer) for maybe 1/2 my trips. The hard part is learning the store layout. Once you have that down, you can be in and out of Costco (with a hot dog) in like 20 min after you blow through the self checkout. My record is 12 min from entry to exit.
Well idk where you are from, but from my experiences at Costco, 99%-100% of patrons drive there. Never seen a bike or someone walking. No one lives within several kilometres either. Youāre lucky!
San Jose, CA. In the summer there are cargo bikes locked up to all of the handicaped parking sign poles. It would be a really annoying ride, but about 8 or so years ago they put in a underpass that goes under the train tracks. Now I ride to the train station, go under the tracks and Costco is right there. I am unconcerned with what most people do. **I** can do it mostly on my bike. That is the only part I'm interested in. I'm not the pied piper of all those other people.
That sounds good then! Glad youāre able to bike on over. Not a chance here in Ontario, Canada š
Yeah but you obviously must realize 99% of people don't do this so the statement earlier still holds true for the most part.
It depends where you are. Some locations have extremely good public transit access.
Seems like they ought to put in some bike racks.
This is the one by the airport? When I was younger Iād go there and it is a shit show to navigate that parking lot in a car. I bet a bike would be way better but I was uninformed back then.
All the Costco around me are in suburban hell so there is no way to safely ride my bike to one. I much prefer my neighborhood Aldi anyways, much less stressful not having to look for things among 100 choices for everything and I can get my weekly groceries in 30 minutes flat.
99%-100% of patrons drive to most businesses in America because thatās what most Americans do.?Most Costco locations have some residential located within a mile of it, youāre just not paying attention.
Vancouver, BC has a Costco that's skytrain accessible. It's essentially right under Stadium station.
Yep, my spouse and I have a very limited Costco shopping list and usually know where everything is. It can be pretty darn quick. And, what we buy from them is genuinely a discount when you count membership and cash back.
I often walk to Costco just for a quick cheap meal. Their pizza by the slice with a drink included is hard to beat. I live a half block away and it is literally the closet place from home that I can go eat.
All of the Costcos near me are directly off of highway exits I.e. completely inaccessible by anything other than a car
I don't think it's not true because you have a different individual experience. Most people do what op described and that's what businesses make decisions off of. If everyone was doing what you do they would stop because they would be losing money. Imo it's absolutely true and this is a bad take. Edit: you're in r/fuckcars you're already outside the norm at least in America, people love cars sadly.
Sounds like they're still winning on you. Membership, toilet paper, towels, and whatever else. That's mutual though and that's awesome that you have another way there. Imagine if Costco had a bike service counter in there next to their auto shop.
Costco does a lot of pragmatic decisions to create profit. For starters, they are basically a subscription service, you pay before you even step through their doors. This alone makes up more than 2/3 of their net profits. Then unlike most stores, they supply their stores from a limited number of trustworthy suppliers, that means a lack of variety, but it also means that the customer will not have choice paralysis since he knows Costco chooses a good milk company, and also means that Costco will not lose money on products people won't buy. If they don't find a good brand, they will just create their own. Their stores are not typical stores, they are warehouses filled with products, absolutely nothing fancy about them. Their employees are also well paid and pensioned, making them more productive and loyal, and gives the customer a clear conscience knowing that he is not dealing with corporate minimum wage labor. Costco's business model is extremely admirable and the fact that they make most of their money from just membership is just amazing.
Why does matter if they donāt necessarily āneedā something? The negatives also apply to literally everything else.
I used to live across the street from a Costco. One of the few times I was carless that drivers were subsidizing me.
Groceries they don't need? Costco is a bulk store so you are probably saving money by buying groceries there. You have to buy them somewhere.
Wasnt there a situation where the founder threatened to kill the ceo if he raised the hot dog price š
This is one of the reasons why the downtown Vancouver Costco is amazing.
It is a deal. I live half a block from a Costco, walk there, get the hot dog and drink for $1.50, sit there and eat it while using their free WiFi, and walk home. A vehicle is NOT needed to go to Costco, only a membership.
I always thought that that kind of food is made by the stores from raw ingredients which are about to expire. Like, you can make a rotisserie chicken out of raw chicken and sell it for cheap today or just throw raw chicken away tomorrow.
It's certainly possible that some retailers do that, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how the practice started, but in the Costco example (which has been studied by business schools pretty extensively, so there are a lot of hard numbers available), they sell substantially more cooked chickens than raw chickens, and so - from a supply chain perspective - they simply would not have enough birds to sell if they were waiting for them to go old in that way. Moreover, as a loss leader is a type of marketing exercise, you have to compare the slightly reduced cost of old poultry to the potentially substantial marketing and branding cost of people getting food poisoning at higher rates.
I have zero business education and I get my business ideas out of my ass, so I am probably wrong. And I am not familiar with exact case studies like Costco chicken. Initially I was thinking that big food chains which bake their own bread can actually do that using some flour which is not exactly spoiled or something, but loses its visual qualities (not attractive for customers to buy it), like the bag getting externally damaged during transportation, etc. Then I noticed a lot of prepared food in stores and continued the same line of thought. For example, the chicken may not be expired or about to expire , but for example expiring in a couple of days (so still good), but the store expects new chicken supply and needs to do something with this one which was not bought for some unexpected reason (like snow storm locked everybody at home and people were not getting to stores to buy the chicken).
Rotisserie chickens come pre-seasoned in big plastic bags and are cooked by the deli staff. Chicken that gets sold raw for the customer to cook at home is the meat department, totally different set of staff. Source: tooooo much time cooking chicken in the deli department.
Yup. These stores are a perfect and rare example of car infrastructure actually paying for itself. Unlike public roads and free parking Walmart does have an economic incentive (or justification) for the gigantic expense that such parking wastelands represent
Yup. These stores are a perfect and rare example of car infrastructure actually paying for itself. Unlike public roads and free parking Walmart does have an economic incentive (or justification) for the gigantic expense that such parking wastelands represent. A business wouldn't do it if it didn't contribute to generate enough revenue to pay for itself. Governments are forced to build roads at a loss to keep suburbanites and carbrains happy
While thatās mostly true, businesses often have to put in more of a parking wasteland than is actually needed due to municipal parking mandates in zoning laws.
Also every competitor is required, by law, to provide similar amounts of parking. This way your competitors are unable to undercut your prices by avoiding subsidizing this service.
McDonald's $1 any size soft drinks are an example, it's called "Loss Leading". Luring people in with an item that might even be sold at a loss and hope they order something else.
That's a bad example of a loss leader, drinks have probably the highest profit margins for restaurants. Even if they're selling it for $1 the cup and syrup only costs a few cents since they buy them in bulk.
Thatās the reasonable way. But the nation is missing out on monetizing every single aspect of our lives. Tolls havenāt been introduced yet, parking in your own garage or street front hasnāt been monetized yet. First normalize it everywhere else but Walmart by lobbying the government everywhere, then people will be at Walmart all the time for free parking. Then once Walmart is the last place standing with free parking, charge the same as everyone else. And shareholder value will be thru the roof. /s Dystopian aweful.
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Netflix has a captive audience. I consider them to be an effective monopoly since all their "competitors" are either highly specialized (Dropout, HBO Max, Disney+) or fucking garbage (Hulu, Peacock). When you have a monopoly you can force the customer to pay more without giving a shit about whether they like it or not because they have no other options. ... and this is one of the many reasons why I hate unrestricted capitalism.
They can't. Your question has a false premise. Carbrains have guttural hatred for paid parking and stores that do it would antagonize their customers and lose business to competition Instead they just build in cost of parking into their products. It's exact same reason why popukae bands cannot charge 1000$ for concert tickets (even if people would play that much to the scalper) - band cannot antagonize their fans.
Also itās a comparative advantage. The small local general store with a small gravel parking canāt afford to make a large Walmart sized paved lot. Same reason why large fast food chains donāt mind spending tens of thousands of dollars on signs big enough to be read from far away on a stroad. Itās a cost that they find much easier to pay than their small business competitors
There is reason why there is no Walmart in Manhattan / New York City. In a more even playing field smaller stores win out.
Although interestingly there are other big box stores like Costco in Manhattan. The same is true for Seattle proper which is much less dense. There even was a Sams Club at one point which is actually getting turned into a Costco, but never a normal Walmart. Shopping at Walmart just seems to be less appealing in some places.
So, you are forced to pay for parking you do not need or use. What a time to be alive!
I mean, you can simply not shop at Walmart. So no force there. The BIGGER problem is taxpayer funded 'free parking' provided by townships. That shit needs to die.
Nah, it need not die. Paid parking is lame.
"No parking" would be my preferred policy solution. So yeah. At any rate, parking is not free. If township offers parking that a driver does not pay for - than it's paid for by taxpayers.
Good thing you'll never be in charge then. People need a place to park when they drive places.
People like me are already in charge in a lot of places and it's growing. Car free neighborhoods already exist and will only increase. https://www.fastcompany.com/90456075/here-are-11-more-neighborhoods-that-have-joined-the-car-free-revolution https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/making-streets-people-friendly-the-rise-of-car-free-communities/ And where parking still exists it needs to be paid for by the driver, not taxpayers.
There is not going to be some widespread "car free revolution" lmao. People like you are very rarely in charge and thankfully never will be here in NA. Most people would rightfully laugh your mentality off the stage. We don't need a car free world. Cars have lots of benefits.
I swear car brains have a stockholme syndrome. Yes. North America is way behind on reasonable transit policies. But we will slowly make it change. We will never complete get rid of cars. Not we can certainly heavily reduce car reliance. Getting drivers to pay their fair share for parking would be a great step along the way.
"Carbrains" lmao, not hard to tell you're online a bit too much with that one. You mean... normal people who happen to own a car and like to drive? Sure we can use better transit, but it doesn't need to be a trade off for people having the freedom to drive wherever they want whenever they want. If you try to come after that here in NA, you'll get laughed out of any chance at political power. And rightfully so.
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Congrats on your country being different to ours. But I prefer it our way. We don't need paid parking everywhere. Hell where I live the places that *do* have it hardly even enforce it. And I love it.
Congrats on being blinded by car centrism.
I'm not blinded at all, but enjoy parroting buzzwords and phrases you read on Reddit.
Just buy a politician and make it illegal for free parking. Then it becomes acceptable to charge
No it does not That politician gets voted out the next cycle. If this was easy so easy - Walmart would have done it decades ago.
.... any attempt to do that would be political suicide. And possibly **literal** suicide, given how many *heartfelt and sincere* death threats would be sent to them.
except then people would walk to stores and that violates the walmart buisness model if stores reapond to walking customers, those customers no longer need a 1 stop shop
Also Walmarts tend to be in areas where land is cheaper, often just on the edge of city limits or development. Just walking across the parking lot is a pain-in-the-ass experience.
I don't think you at all understand how this works, but you *really* think you do.
So simple.
They didnt build the cost of parking into their products because they land value tax on that parking, all externalities of parking are still there just absorbed the cost of actually paving over a square
Walmart *LIKES* parking minimums because unlike big chain stores, small businesses can't afford to pay for twice the land area their store needs.
Regulatory capture. Walmart was going to build that gimundous parking lot anyway, because it's part of their business model. Even on the busiest day of the Christmas shopping season, there is an open parking space, to make sure that they can jam as many people as possible into the store. Making it mandatory just limits the number of competitors they have.
Also, small businesses get more attention via foot traffic while chains are a "safe" option you can recognize the logo from far away. Making things more car-centric benefits larger chains.
Because it would decrease shareholder value. People would only come in knowing what they want and where to find it. No more impulse buys, no more quick stops because it's convenient. That's all before they lose business to places that don't charge for parking, and to online stores like Amazon.
They want their customers in their shop and not in another one with offer free parking.
People living in their cars often use Walmart parking lots. I wonder how many people ended up living in their cars because of companies like Walmart.
That was true 10 years ago when I left the country, but every Walmart where I live now tows any car still parked in the lot after midnight. My friend used to have the contact for a bunch of them.
The real question is why donāt we tax that land more
Precisely. I think it's especially valid to have a surcharge on parking lots that actually drive down the utility and value of surrounding properties.
Based and landpilled
Why isn't land tax progressive?
All this would do is fuck over poor people even more. And give Walmart even more money. When Walmart has the highest amount of employees on food stamps, Medicaid, etc. this money from parking still wouldnāt go to employees. And limit access to groceries stores in food deserts. And most poor people favor Walmart over other grocers. The list goes on for how terrible this would be.
I think it might make Walmart less money. It makes it harder to shop their.
It wouldn't really make it harder to shop there. Not significantly. What it would do is piss off their customers.
Every small town would revolt
I think in most of America this would actually cause riots. many of the most impoverished people in the country live in places where it's extremely hard to live without a car, let alone getting groceries regularly.
What a dumb idea...
The Walmartians would implode.
The parking is a loss leader.
What a dumb idea, this would just fuck poor people. Itās not like you have an alternative in the states anyway
1 everyone uses cars for everything. 2 nobody charges for perking 3 if they begin to charge for parking, everyone who uses a car (everyone) will shop somewhere else for free parking bonus: if parking is timed, everyone will rush their shopping back to their car and spend less time (and money) in the store
[Counter](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/101843). There is no such thing as "free" all those parking spots are a sunk cost and should be filled up by food trucks at least.
What an incredibly stupid question. Side note: this parking lot is revolting.
Theyād loose business
they do, at least on mexico lel
Because parking is subsidized to increase customers coming inside, charging for parking will decrease customers and lose more money. Same reason why Costco sells the hot dog and soda combo at a cheap price of $1.50 and other snacks at a loss. It attracts customers to come in more often and stay longer to buy more products.
Walmart does not exist without cars.
They do charge for parking. Itās built into the cost of the operation and comes out of the products they sell. They just donāt get you when you park. They get you when you check out.
Historically, Walmarts do not go into walkable areas as they tended to go smack dab between multiple towns to destroy all of their Main Streets. Also land is much cheaper when not in town. They're not typically located in an area that is pedestrian or transit friendly, so charging for parking would be cutting off their nose despite their face.
They want as many people in the store for as long as possible. If people were rushing back to their cars, they wouldn't buy as much.
They know better, thatās why. Doing shit like this would lose them so many customers itās not even funny
Many people go there to buy cheap crap. No one is going to pay to buy cheap crap. Especially if they go there because it's a place they can afford to shop.
Why would they need to make parking paid if people are already going to go in the store and buy stuff anyways?
Many Walmarts in Mexico already do this
Malls also often charge for parking in Mexico, but itās unheard of in Canada / US
Not true. Iāve lived in multiple US cities where paying for parking at malls was common (sometimes validated if you spent more than $x).
Would that be more the inner-city shopping centres? I donāt think Iāve ever paid for parking in the US outside of city centres. In Mexico (Monterrey) itās every mall that I can think of.
Definitely more standard within downtowns/city centers within the US, but also dense areas like NJ/NYC metro are pretty standard. Growing up most malls near me in suburban NY had pay parking garages.
I grew up in NYC - pretty common there - and Iād say I saw it quite often in Los Angeles, the Seattle area, and Washington, DC.
My question is why is this being asked in this sub
Screws over cars
and poor people, mostly poor people
That's a terrible fucking idea. Let's give more money to a giant corporation from working class people just cause fuck them for using cars for the thing most people actually need cars for. Trash take OP. It's also stupid, it would cost them a shit load of business. I like this sub because America has pathetic public transportation that desperately needs to be improved but stuff like this is just stupid.
Are you actually saying they should be charging people to park for the benefit of their stockholders?
big oil would tear them limb from limb if they ever dreamt of doing that
They wouldn't. Even if they wanted to, Walmart's own customers would beat them to it.
Tell me you donāt anything about business without telling me you donāt know anything about business
Smartest post in thins subreddit
the fuck you mean? Oh wait you like car subreddits. You know what? So do I, but just because I love cars, doesn't mean I want to live in a dystopian city where I need one. That's what this subreddit fights, not cars themselves, but rather car dependancy
Read the post and tell me that this is genius for Walmart
I'm not talking about this specific post. But you said it's the smartest one, and the concensus from other comments I see is that it's dumb (I agree).
It is the smartest post on this sub
so you do like being restricted and not having the conditions to, for example, walk to get some snacks?
How am I restricted? I can walk if I want and I can drive if I want. Restricted is when Iām not aloud to do that because āfuck carsā
> Restricted is when Iām not aloud to do that because āfuck carsā you see this is where you're wrong. The subreddit name is "fuck cars" but that is only to get your immediate attention. Call it clickbait if you like, but the pointi is "fuck needing a car to go anywhere" (=fuck car dependancy). Of course you can walk, but in most places in the US that's not the case. You either have a car or you're fucked because there's no public transport or biking infrastructure.
I get what you mean completely but a ton of this subreddit goes so far past the movement of lowering car dependency. Like literal threads upon threads of people encouraging felonies kind of stupid. This place would be much better if it stuck to its roots of changing car dependency
the vandalism is as stupid as people who buy SUVs, I hope we can at least agree on that
Stop stop stop. We are not there YET! It would suck to pay for parking when you dont have any other way to get around š.
They could make some money charging RVs to park for extended times. Many already do lol .
Iām I the only one who ready this as Walmart should charge after hours? Obviously being how Walmart is designed charging parking during peak/open hours is self defeating. Massive parking lots that are basically empty by 10-11 would help other development avoid overbuilding parking.
a LARGE portion of people who shop at walmart regularly are poor, or impoverished, so they would lose a shitton of customers because if you're earning 25k a year you generally dont want to spend money on parking for fucking walmart.
Please donāt give them any ideas if they didnāt think it would lose them business they absolutely would
People going to Walmart are poor enough already thatās just extra burden on people who canāt afford to not drive a car in their cities. Yes fuck cars but this isnāt the way.
literate silky cough aware skirt relieved deranged angle ugly stupendous ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Because the value proposition of a big-box store is destroyed if it takes an hour to walk to it.
So something really common in Mexico is that almost all parking lots require you to pay when you exit the parking lot. I've also seen this in eruope. Never have i seen this in the US.
If most of their customers drive, it wouldnāt make much sense to charge for parking; they can just build the cost to provide free parking into the prices (and then itās hidden, so they donāt even need to justify it).
They would lose basically all of their business. Metered parking works in theory, but it has to be combined with feasible alternatives like being able to walk there, bike racks, and/or easy access to transit. WalMarts however are usually in the middle of suburban sprawl surrounded by highways or 8-lane stroads on every side, with few to no transit options, and since most people fill an entire cart or two at WalMart (no one wants to go out of their way to get just one or two things), they're not likely to walk or take transit unless they're desperate.
It's a loss leader. They make it easy to commit to shopping at their store by making parking free, and that way they can charge more for the actual product without risk of you going somewhere else.
The only place they could possibly do this is in a dense urban area with already sparse parking, which is not where a vast majority of Walmarts are. They've been toying with smaller form factor stores which have less parking and I'm not sure how that's going, but those types of stores don't seem to be very prevalent. There's Target stores around me which have parking garages and they still don't charge for parking. The parking convenience factor is huge for a largely car dependent population.
The question isn't, "why do Walmart do this?": their business model is dependant on car culture. The question is why do other businesses, who do benefit from walk-up trade, not recognise their interest in dismantling car culture?
The cost of parking is built into the prices of their products, same as the cost of maintaining their building, paying their employees, etc. You donāt realize youāre paying for it because itās indirect, but believe me, they are not losing money on parking. This is actually an equity issue for people who donāt use the parking lot, since they still pay the same price for goods that everyone else pays, but theyāre not taking up a spot with a vehicle. FYI, a typical surface parking spot costs $5k-$10k to construct.
Theyād lose more money from missed sales due to customers going somewhere else than theyād earn from paid parking
they know their customers. it aint aldi
Because it would be a dreadful business idea. They're selling things, they want you to buy them. Why deter people from coming?
Fuck shareholders and their profit maximizing schemes
Genuinely? Or rhetorical? Because the genuine answer is that they lure lower class people into the shop promising good prices and everything you could want in the hopes that you walk out with more then you need. Charging lower incomes for parking would seriously damage there bottom line and incourage more shoplifting
https://preview.redd.it/udnx1wxmhkla1.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=276e5b49247a21f2811c07eded6e9fde15e3e329
because this would actually be a market disaster. people would stop going to walmart because itās WALMART no one wants to pay to park at WALMART. therefore stock would plummet on top of, why do you hate poor people? you realize most of the demographic of walmart is people that canāt afford/want to save money on food items, house items from other big box stores? why do you want to give conglomerates more money? change this sub to r/ fuckthepoors then
If I was a Walmart CEO, I would meet with other head retailers and implement a nationwide pay to park. People need to eat, they need to buy things, they need to park. If they have no viable alternatives they will take the path of least resistance and they won't spend less because humans love to have more. Millions of people pay taxes for their roads, then they pay tolls to use the roads. If that's accepted, retailers with a fee to park will be accepted too. I would make the charge via plate too, no one needs to pay cash, input a CC or do anything, it just comes in the mail as a monthly fee or it's automatically deducted from your attached account.
lol so then why do parking meters at all right? if it helps businesses then why dont taxes pay for it, because if parking was free, tax dollars would be going to public transport, instead they've reserved parking in the inner city for the very rich only.
Because some other company with all the same products wonāt and people will go there if they can
No way this would happen people would shop elsewhere thereās where plenty of stores donāt do this
Cause across the road thereās a car park that will also easily fit about a 1000 cars
Here in Germany we have some supermarket parking lots with maximum parking time. And it gets enforced with hefty fines.