An "exciting change". We charge, you leave.

Part of the culinary arts program is advertising and management. This is logical, since the goal is a Hospitality Management Certificate (or AA).

So, when I see something that's so obviously twisted, I laugh. Don't they know they're being twisted and insincere?

This wonderfully upbeat message is from a paper with a great culinary section to which I soon will no longer be a former subscriber. (Wow. Future anterior tense?). Un journal dont je n'aurai plus être abonné en très peu de temps, quoi. See? Everything does sound better in French.

I received this tidbit in an e-mail:

Dear Readers,
We are making an exciting change to [newspaper web site], and we want you to be the first to know how we're evolving.

NEW [newspaper] MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM

On March 5, we're launching a membership program. If you're an avid [newspaper web site] reader, but not currently a home delivery customer, we hope you'll consider joining for a nominal fee to get:     

•     Unlimited digital access to all of the newspaper's award-winning news and information
•     Unique storytelling
•     Investigative reports
•     In-depth local news
•     Signature blogs
•     Compelling photo galleries
•     Original video content
•     Revealing data projects and analysis
     
Membership privileges also include:    
     
•     Special opportunities at select Newspaper events
•     Exclusive discounts and deals
•     Giveaways and contests
   
      If you are already a subscriber, you simply need to follow a few registration steps to
activate your membership at no additional cost. Non-members can continue to browse
The Newspaper online for limited reading and breaking news.

That's what the text was like, except that their real name was inserted all over the place instead of "newspaper".

Here is what I read:

Dear Readers,

      We are making an exciting change to [newspaper web site], where we'll charge you for everything you get free now, but we'll keep all the advertisements in place just to annoy you.

NEW [newspaper] MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM

On March 5, we're launching a membership program. If you're an avid [newspaper web site] reader, but not currently a home delivery customer - even though there is no home delivery of our paper in your area - we hope you'll consider joining for a nominal fee that will never end, and be very difficult to cancel. You'll get pretty much exactly what you get now, except you'll have to pay for it and log in with yet another username and password:
     
•   Unlimited digital access to everything that you get for free now
•   Unique storytelling that you get free now
•   Investigative reports that you get free now
•   In-depth local news that you get free now
•   Signature blogs that you get free now
•   Compelling photo galleries that you get free now
•   Original video content that you get free now
•   Revealing data projects and analysis that you get free now
     
Membership privileges also include ways of marketing more stuff targeted using information we get from tracking everything you do on our web site and possibly others: 

Special opportunities at select Newspaper events where we will try to take even more of your money by selling tickets or selling goods and services.

• Exclusive discounts and deals that we'll push on you even though we'll be making money whether you visit our site or not. These deals will be at least 400 miles from where you live, but don't worry. For the duration of the deal, it will be exclusive. After that, maybe not so much.
• Giveaways and contests where we convince you it's in your best interest to give your e-mail to every company we do business with so we can collect more fees and you can collect more Spam.
• If you are already a subscriber, you simply need to follow a few registration steps to activate your membership at no additional cost. Non-members can continue to browse The Newspaper online for limited reading and breaking news just so we can continue to get lots of hits and keep our advertising rates high.

They don't even mention what their "nominal fee" would be, typical of today's typical marketing effort. When I buy a toaster, I want to know the price - but for anything on the Net, especially intangibles like this, the price seems to be buried at least three pages down. Sometimes they won't even tell you until you give up your personal e-mail. That's when I leave their site, hoping that they're not tracking me.

I'm not going to sign up, and their hit count will go down. They won't get as much money for their advertisements. I won't read their stuff any more. So who wins? The guy in management who came up with this idea? Certainly not the readers, and probably not the advertisers.

How dumb are we, exactly?

 

One of our big corporation run supermarkets is at it again. Here's the deal: buy one steak, get one free. The week before, this meat was running about $7.00 per pound. On sale, it was around $14 per pound if you bought one steak, or about $7.00 if you bought two. The second one is "free". Get it? Funny, though. If you'd bought two steaks at the old price, the total would have been... probably less, since they had smaller steaks then.

Where you might have (gasp) bought one large steak, grilled it, fanned it out and served it to two people, now you either buy two steaks for twice as much or go elsewhere.

Welcome to the 21st Century, where everyone is a victim and Corporations are King! We really seem to be living in some sci-fi dystopia, but the real question is which one? Minority Report? Blade Runner? 1984? Brave New World? Little Heroes? All of the above, with a few twists thrown in?

Why is nobody screaming about this? Where is the organized boycott done as a retaliation against being treated like idiots? We're being conned, mislead, manipulated and disrespected, with no end in sight and not even a token protest.

It's not just about pricing, either. What's in that food we're eating? What's the "color added" in the salmon? Why is there sand in my spices? Which foods have ground up bugs that live on cacti added for color? If something isn't sustainable, how come it's renamed instead of discontinued? Greenwashed yet un-green. Does high-fructose corn syrup really need to be in everything? Why can't they ferment and distill the stuff for ethanol to add to my gasoline instead of feeding it to me?

Is is true that as long as we have good televisions, we'll remain pacified and controllable? Like the graffiti in Porto said, "Don't wait for the revolution while sitting in front of your TV" But, figuratively or otherwise, we're ALL sitting in front of our TVs.

Oh, and to all those idiots who think industrial geniuses like the ones in Atlas Shrugged will save us, please remember this: that was a work of FICTION. It also neglected to mention what happens to the ordinary workers, since everyone can't be a genius CEO. Although, if every worker were considered an independent asset instead of a cog in a corporate machine, where the government existed to ensure fair treatment to all and guarantee equal access to services... wait. That would mean re-writing the entire system, taking the power away from those currently at the top and giving it to those at the bottom. Using some sort of just informational system to eliminate concentrations of power and wealth that lead to inequality (yes, I'm also talking to you, Communist Party leaders!). This is only a food blog, not a revolutionary political manifesto.

If it were a manifesto, I'd also mention that it's no wonder that governments are broke, when they have "spend it or lose it" rules that don't reward saving and working within a budget. What if agencies could carry over unspent money, allocating it for special projects like people saving up to buy a house?

But, this isn't a manifesto so I'll stop. Now.