Does anybody else ever visit The Consumerist website? If you're not familiar with the website, let me explain it to you. The Consumerist is a website that trashes companies for doing things like turning a profit or using marketing. They trash retailers like Radio Shack for selling Monster Cables with an 80% markup. An 80% markup you say? That sounds outrageous, right?
WRONG.
The last time I checked, we live in a capitalist society. If you don't like the price, don't fucking buy them. As a consumer, you can shop ANYWHERE you want. You don't have to buy cables at Radio Shack. You don't even have to buy Monster Cables at all if you don't want to. If people are willing to pay the price the free market sets for these cables, then what's the problem? There are plenty of electronic retailers out there to promote competition. It's not a monopoly, and nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to buy cables.
The Consumerist is also big on trashing companies who employ the use of demographics and (gasp) marketing. The Consumerist has a hard on for trashing specific companies that use these techniques in order to turn a profit. These things are nothing new. Every successful company recognizes what types of consumers are likely to do business with them, and they attempt to cater to their demographics specific needs in order to land sales. Why is this a problem? It's not, and The Consumerist tries to make it sound like companies are wrong for recognizing that customers CAN fit into an established role or category.
ATTENTION CONSUMERS:
The quicker you learn what I'm about to tell you, the better. Every time you go somewhere to buy something, you need to remember why that company was started.
It was started to MAKE MONEY!
It WAS NOT started to give things away for free.
It's not a charity, and you shouldn't go in looking for handouts. The free market will set the price for products. If you don't like the price, instead of crying like the bunch of pussies that run The Consumerist, shop around, find an alternative, or just don't buy it. The stores you go into are there to turn a profit. They have bills to pay. Employees have mouths to feed, just like you.
Everybody is selling something. You may despise people in sales, but the company YOU work for is in sales, too. They're selling a product or a service of some kind, and guess what? You're contributing to the sale of those services and products by doing whatever job you do, even though you aren't on the front lines. What if YOUR company started marking down it's products and services because people bitched like a bunch of pussies on an internet website? Sooner or later your employer may not be able to afford to pay you.
Ditch The Consumerist people, they're a bunch of cry baby pussies.
Oh yea, Ben Popken is the editor of The Consumerist.