Fuck You, Breyer's Ice Cream!!

lol true.....it had no flavor...I was very dissapointed.

 

Jeff, I understand and support your anger at these large corporations. However, you are blindly overlooking a big part of the picture.

Yes, you are exactly right... "WE the consumers are like sheep that exist to be fleeced of our wool every so often". But why is this?

Aren't "WE the consumer" responsible for buying all these goods even though we know the prices are too high and we know companies are money hungry giants? If the educated consumer isn't buying these products then who is? These companies aren't having trouble staying in business are they? Why is this? Because the majority of consumers today are uneducated about the products they buy. These consumers are the easiest market to target and attract. They blindly follow commercials and billboards. They follow idiotic fads started by idiotic idols that are paid to advertise these idiot products. Sadly enough, this is the majority of society. For some odd reason these fad followers believe they are being "Individuals".

It sounds as though you expect these companies to take some sort of moral high ground to try and change things when it's the consumers who need to be handling their own issues.

The "once upon a time" you speak of, well those were the days when consumers didn't feel a need to have 500 different varieties of every product. There wasn't a need for 500 different varieties of shoes or 500 different varieties of ice-cream. These days, it's all about "individuality". For some reason, Joe1 feels the need to have a version of a product that's different and supposedly better then what Joe2 has. This creates a market that will be filled by joe1 and followed by Joe3 because he also wants something that Joe2 doesn't have. Joe4 then comes around and wants something that neither Joe could ever afford and creates the high priced market that will be followed by only the elite Joes. Well Joe5 really likes the version made by Joe4 so finds a way to make it cheaper and thus creates another market. Do you see the never ending cycle here?

This is what creates the idiocy we decided to call competitive market. We turned this type of situation in to something it isn't. We hoped that these companies would compete for our business by lowering prices. However, this is not the case because idiot consumers and their constant need for "individuality" will continue to purchase from every market available. The most obscene idiocy comes from consumers who deliberately buy the more expensive yet identical products simply because of it's idiotic label. Why would any of these companies lower prices when their customer base continues to grow?

Just try to stop the corporate bashing long enough to take in the bigger picture in order to be a bit less one sided.

Well, this is turning in to a rather large post and can easily go stray so I'll stop for now.

 

Businesses try to capitalize off this as much as possible. It's tough to gain market share in a competetive market. That's why businesses use advertising tactics to try to get the consumer to impose a psychological monopoly upon himself and pick a product out of 'devotion' to the company or some other non-economic type of rationale.

 

Of course they do, it's business 101! Who the heck goes in to business NOT to make money.

The rest of your post suggests that it's the companies creating this desire for "individuality" and label idolizing. You sound similiar to Jeff here. It's the consumer creating the demand for this garbage otherwise the supply would never exist or at least wouldn't exist long.

 

It's not so much a desire for junk. It's the way companies take something that people want but then revert to these non-economic type tactics to get buyer loyalty or to sucker them into thinking they are getting more when they are getting less.

People demand ice cream. That's true. But most consumers are not demanding to get suckered out of their money by deceptive and underhanded tricks that often go unnoticed.

 

If someone wants to pay $5 more for a can of oil that Richard Petty endorses, they are free to do so, and it's fair if they know the volume their getting and the price and know it's just the same oil. If someone was selling that quart of oil and it looked like a quart but you were actually getting less, then most people would get a little annoyed that they were being shook down deceptively.

Imagine if consumers could trick businesses by paying them with notes that looked like $10 but were really $8. And then they would say, "Ha Ha. That's the fault of the business for getting ripped off and not noticing the deceptiveness."

 

Whether the demand was there originally or the businesses create it is debatable. Businesses love to start crazes. Was the demand for the craze there first, or was it put into people's minds by the businesses?

Take the huge push by businesses to put out disposable items in the 70s. Did people really want all that disposable stuff, or did the businesses just convince people that they should start buying everything disposable? Or was so much disposable stuff being produced that the consumers were just forced to buy it? (and therefore we should conclude that they were demanding disposable?)

Or, what about all of that gigantic packaging of a toys where the package is 90% of the volume and the toy is 10%. The consumer really only wants the toy, but the business wants the product to get noticed and puts out a terrible amount of packaging waste. Is the consumer demanding all of that waste just because they are demanding the toy?

 

Here's another deception example for you. Back in the 90s, there was a huge push by businesses to sell consumers fake cheese made of a grain called cassein and oil, since it can be made dirt cheap and could yield a bigger profit.

Real dairy cheese has to say 'Pasteurized Process Cheese Food' on the label. To trick the consumer, these companies were labeling the fake cheese 'Pasteurized Process Cheese Imitation'. Now that's really deceptive. They even tricked me a few times, and I'm very observant.

Originally, the fake cheese didn't even have the "Pasteurize Process Cheese Imitation' label on it. They added that deceptive label after the first round of suckering the consumer had been exhausted after everyone had caught on.

 

did you ever think it was because dairy prices went up or the store itself was responsible for the maintenance of the price, I don't like breyers but geez man no need to be paranoid about, they aren't out to get you.

 

I disagree.
Many companies devote large amounts of resources developing unrequested new products and creating a demand for them utilizing 'brain washing'/shelf space monopolistic tactics.
ie: 'Pet Rock'/plug in air fresheners/disposable toilet cleaning 'brushes'/all sorts of crap rammed down TV viewers'/shoppers' throats

 

Actually, what I was initially griping about was the fact that some people were defending the companies that manipulate quantities and prices, because those people were making it seem as though WE should be happy to exist to make COMPANIES fat on profits, rather than COMPANIES existing to simply make a FAIR PROFIT for producing goods and services that we want or need.

I'm complaining that some people are apparently complacent with the idea that they are just fodder for corporations. Just another consumer in a pool of consumers to me "market-tested" to see if they're amenable to being fleeced some more.

Do you think that Breyer's didn't do research and tests to find out if the public at large would even notice that they were no longer giving the expected amount of ice cream in a way-too-similar-size-and-shape-seeming package? Of course they did. It's indicative of the problem I'm outlining here: companies have a no-holds-barred credo for seeking profits nowadays, and it completely supercedes any kind of ethics or morals about giving customers a FAIR DEAL. Their attitude nowadays is "as long as we can get away with it and it makes us more money than it costs us, who cares if we engage in scumbag business tactics?!" And that's just wrong. Just because one is in business, doesn't mean he has to sell his soul out for profits. It didn't use to be like this, I think.

-Jeffrey

 

Great point and example, Shaggie, and thanks for being one of the few who really seems to get why I started this complaint thread in the first place.

-Jeffrey

 

I don't think it was a great point at all. That $5 can of oil has labels on it just like any other product. If you don't read the labels it's your own fault. Since when was it ever up to companies to look out for consumers? It's ridiculous and naive to ever think any company ever looked out for a consumers best interest.

This is the problem with society today, everyone is looking for someone else to blame.

 

so mhr, EVERY time you go into a store to buy 'brand a' cookies you read the label, despite the fact that you have been buying them once a week for the last 7 years??

 

No, I don't check every time.. but you know what? I accept that it's my problem and my responsible to do so. If I don't check and get screwed, then it's my fault. The simple fact is, the labels are there and available to everyone. What the heck makes anyone think these companies have a responsibility to educate us any further then that? You want them to stick a pacifier in our mouths and read the label for us?

I know, let's start an organization that looks after our best interest. Oh.. wait.. we have that already and they established what information should go on a label. What about somebody that monitors these people as well? Oh.. wait.. we have that already also. Hmmm. Neither works well enough huh? I guess we need take further action and start writing letters to our government letting them know that we aren't capable of reading labels and something else needs to be done to protect us that doesn't require us to get involved. We need more policing of the companies, so please raise our taxes so that you can hire more government officials who will better look after us because we just can't be bothered to do it ourselves. Yeah, that's it!

 

i think you are being alittle dramatic...most people don't check and do get screwed and yes to a large degree it is their fault. we should read labels and be aware of our purchases. it has nothing to do with raising taxes or hiring more people. the price should have been altered to suit the purchase. and that responsibility lies both with the store and the maufacturer. and protesting this point at the store or company level does little good does it? so where do you go from there?

 

And what law enforces this? Or is this just your preference? There is a difference.

 

well, i don't have the downlow on every law there is so i can't say for sure, buddy...i'm sure there isn't one, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be one...is it just my preference? no, i don't think so...i think alot of people would prefer it to be so too...

 

if I ever buy icecream, I buy whats on sale, and even then, it is the generic kind. ben and jerrys sucks ass, because it is so damn expensive. and its not worth it.

 

Blue Bell on sale is usually cheaper than the house brands.
I buy BB then n fill the freezer...