Why is everything in consumer / American life so fucking shitty now - and companies literally just say 'oh bc profit margins' and we're now expected to swallow that and sympathize?
like I went to taco bell and they didn't even have napkins out. they had the other stuff just no napkins, I assume because some fucking ghoul noticed people liked taking them for their cars so now we just don't get napkins! so they can save $100 per quarter rather than provide the barest minimum quality of life features.
People need to be willing to suffer small conveniences to send a message to companies, but they aren't. And then they complain that the government should step in, while they constantly elect people who protect business interests and are anti-consumer in the name of "small government."
It's requires at least one or the other... a free market with consumers who drive the demand, or big government. With neither, you end up with constant corporate abuses.
How do you prevent misinformation in a free market that misleads your customers? Every problem can be greenwashed away by corporations. Even independent investigative organisations won't have the resources to really drill down and figure stuff out. Without tax funded government entities I can't see how they are made responsible.
Every free market will concentrate capital, with that power and with that information and the customers' ability to make good choices.