# Companies that don't have much time left **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 11, 2015, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354 "2015-10-11T20:07:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/101 "2015-10-14T22:11:36Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Will, or have, their desires be entirely influenced by advertising and not just coming across something neat on the shelves? It’s not like they have the patience, generally, to browse toy websites like adults do with books. You’ve evidently never seen a 7-year-old with a holiday catalog. 😉 Besides, marketing is still at play when you’re browsing shelves - package design, placement in the store, etc. ---
**Author:** ![desertmonk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@desertmonk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desertmonk)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/102 "2015-10-14T22:25:31Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > The one near me keeps putting up stuff on its sign like “Twenty new locations opening this fall - Visit website for management positions” > > One thing that Family Video does is that they own the property their stores are on and often adjacent property as well. I guess this helps insulate them some from rising lease costs as well as provide an additional revenue stream from leasing out the extra property. Menards (regional hardware chain) has the same model, acting as a property management company as well as a hardware/dry goods store. I’d bet Family Video is doing that to get applicants, the one on my street frequently has their sign saying they’re hiring for store manager. So, lying. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/103 "2015-10-14T23:29:54Z")
Tanning salons. These strike me as the kind of thing future generations will look back on in disbelief; disbelief that such dangerous practices were actually promoted and sold. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/104 "2015-10-15T00:47:12Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Tanning salons. These strike me as the kind of thing future generations will look back on in disbelief; disbelief that such dangerous practices were actually promoted and sold. Cigarette companies are probably 100 times as dangerous. Do you think they will disappear? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/105 "2015-10-15T00:53:55Z")
> [@desertmonk](#): > > I’d bet Family Video is doing that to get applicants, the one on my street frequently has their sign saying they’re hiring for store manager. So, lying. Maybe the one on your street just has trouble keeping a store manager. I’d guess that if there’s any exaggeration in “hiring twenty management positions”, it may be that they’re not all for Family Video per se but rather across its various sister companies under the same ownership umbrella: > [@](#): > > We are the largest movie and game rental chain in the United States. We operate more than 775 Family Video stores in 19 U.S. states and Canada; we’re opening more all the time. Our unique property-ownership model makes us a different sort of retailer because we buy and develop most of our buildings and land. We have developed more than 600 retail strip centers and count Fortune 500 companies as well as Mom and Pop retailers amongst our tenants. > > Our entrepreneurial spirit is what makes Family Video grow. Recent efforts include opening Marco’s Pizza stores, adjacent to our brick and mortar stores to offer one-stop shopping for dinner and entertainment, sister companies such as ITV-3, a cable television service that uses fiber-to-the-home technology, and StayFit-24, state-of-the-art fitness centers that offer workouts in a clean and safe environment. That goes back to my previous remark, that Family Video isn’t just video/game rental but they’re also big into property management based on where the store is located. If you see a strip mall with a Family Video in it, chances are Family Video owns that strip mall so everyone else in it is paying FV rent. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/106 "2015-10-15T01:41:49Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Cigarette companies are probably 100 times as dangerous. Do you think they will disappear? Apples and oranges. Cigarettes are 100 times as dangerous but also probably 100 times more addictive. Addiction is the key to cigarettes survival. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/107 "2015-10-15T11:41:24Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Tanning salons. These strike me as the kind of thing future generations will look back on in disbelief; disbelief that such dangerous practices were actually promoted and sold. Never been in a tanning salon; do they typically permit cigarette smoking in the booth? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/108 "2015-10-15T14:42:27Z")
The thing about that phone book company that I linked to is this: 1. You have to dig _deep_ into their website to find out they actually publish phone books. 2. But if you dig even deeper into their annual report, you’ll find that their largest source of revenues and profits… is their phone books. It is completely bizarre to me that the industry is so ashamed of their product that the major players completely dismiss them. It’s not as if phone books are totally worthless, they’re just more of a niche product instead of the mass product of 20+ years ago. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/109 "2015-10-15T15:07:28Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > Staples and Office Max/Depot have a pending merger, waiting on FTC antitrust review. > > Similarly, I believe PetSmart is buying PetCo. Hopefully PetLand will go away, since I believe it’s the only one left that still sells puppies from puppy mills. ooh! We have a PetCo and a PetSmart in our town, veeeeery close to each other (Between them? An Office Max!) I wonder which one will stay?? ---
**Author:** ![Turpentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Turpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turpentine)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/110 "2015-10-15T15:55:16Z")
I used to work at a university that was using monkeys for research. Part of the guidelines required for an institution to keep research animals, and monkeys in particular, is an enrichment program. The monkeys required daily mentally stimulating activities that needed to be rotated frequently. One thing monkeys love to do for fun is to destroy things. We had categories of types of mental enrichment for the rotation and one category was “destructive item”. There were frequent e-mails asking the staff to donate the free phone books that are still delivered to your doorstep every year or so. The phone books made great “destructive item” toys for the monkeys. Fun to watch, too. It’s possible that phone books serve some purpose this day and age other than monkey enrichment, but to me this is truly the best use for them. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/111 "2015-10-16T01:40:32Z")
Yellowbook will be so proud. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/112 "2015-10-16T02:24:45Z")
> [@Turpentine](#): > > I used to work at a university that was using monkeys for research. Part of the guidelines required for an institution to keep research animals, and monkeys in particular, is an enrichment program. The monkeys required daily mentally stimulating activities that needed to be rotated frequently. . . . Well, duh. It’s a university. Make them take calculus. About 30 years ago, I was working on a research project with dolphins at a University. We were teaching them Latin. (ETA: [Cite: Our full research report, PDF file.](http://www.google.com/url?q=http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url%3Furl%3Dhttp://www.researchgate.net/profile/Louis_Herman2/publication/16654959_Comprehension_of_sentences_by_bottlenosed_dolphins/links/54f13cc90cf2b36214ab7de8.pdf%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26scisig%3DAAGBfm2ZW9qGeRn291EACTQjbPovmaA_LQ%26nossl%3D1%26oi%3Dscholarr&sa=U&ved=0CBQQgAMoAGoVChMIhqfJvfjFyAIVgzuICh1Jtgjf&usg=AFQjCNGCgfqC8JNu4C-B6LZuqBJ6zfC67Q)) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/113 "2015-10-16T12:09:28Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Well, duh. It’s a university. Make them take calculus. > > About 30 years ago, I was working on a research project with dolphins at a University. We were teaching them Latin. (ETA: [Cite: Our full research report, PDF file.](http://www.google.com/url?q=http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url%3Furl%3Dhttp://www.researchgate.net/profile/Louis_Herman2/publication/16654959_Comprehension_of_sentences_by_bottlenosed_dolphins/links/54f13cc90cf2b36214ab7de8.pdf%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26scisig%3DAAGBfm2ZW9qGeRn291EACTQjbPovmaA_LQ%26nossl%3D1%26oi%3Dscholarr&sa=U&ved=0CBQQgAMoAGoVChMIhqfJvfjFyAIVgzuICh1Jtgjf&usg=AFQjCNGCgfqC8JNu4C-B6LZuqBJ6zfC67Q)) “Flipper! Vade auxilium!” ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/114 "2015-10-16T16:04:08Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Well, duh. It’s a university. Make them take calculus. > > About 30 years ago, I was working on a research project with dolphins at a University. We were teaching them Latin. [https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.melbournechat.org%2F%3Fshowtopic%3D2813&psig=AFQjCNECiQoHnUT173dF\_D3biZXpp8u21w&ust=1445097785690748](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.melbournechat.org%2F%3Fshowtopic%3D2813&psig=AFQjCNECiQoHnUT173dF_D3biZXpp8u21w&ust=1445097785690748) ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/115 "2015-10-17T22:41:26Z")
A&P just declared bankruptcy again. I know because the terrible Pathmark near my old apartment closed a couple of weeks ago, to be replaced by a Stop&Shop (of to-be-determined terribleness). Supermarkets are likely to be around for a while, but that particular one might not be. Not quite on the subject, but I’m surprised the slot car track near my current apartment is hanging on, or was as of a few months ago – though I think it might be the last one in Brooklyn. > [@dzeiger](#): > > Apparently, they don’t realize that “I only read it for the articles” is actually a joke… I have only ever read _Playboy_ for the articles. Because there was very little time between when I became interested in looking at pictures of naked ladies and when I had internet access. > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Just a few minutes ago, I heard on NBC News that traffic to their website quadrupled when they took the nudity off. That actually makes sense to me, for the reason **gotpasswords** said: you can go for the quality non-prurient content without worrying abut what your boss/toddler/grandmother is going to see if they walk by and glance at your screen (not to mention the sizable minority of potential readers who are themselves put off by tits) But I wonder, is there a significant audience for “a little naughty” but not full-on porn? Like, are there people who actually prefer what I guess can no longer be called _Playboy_-style nudity to more seriously pornographic material? ---
**Author:** ![Mrdeals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Mrdeals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrdeals)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/116 "2015-10-18T01:09:37Z")
Wal-Mart I don’t think they will completely disappear, but they will be in some serious trouble if they don’t diversify. They are operating on barely a 3% net margin. Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, Hy-Vee, and smaller discounters (like me) are chipping away at that 3% fast. Why doesn’t Wal-Mart acquire some of these smaller discounters? ---
**Author:** ![Jake\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Jake\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake_Jones)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/117 "2015-10-18T02:42:44Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > Wal-Mart > > I don’t think they will completely disappear, but they will be in some serious trouble if they don’t diversify. > > They are operating on barely a 3% net margin. > > Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, Hy-Vee, and smaller discounters (like me) are chipping away at that 3% fast. > > Why doesn’t Wal-Mart acquire some of these smaller discounters? Most supermarkets would kill for a 3% net profit and are happy with 1-2%. Do you think supermarkets are in serious trouble? They’ve lived on those margins since literally, forever. Supermarkets were conceived and exist based on this model. Walmart reported gross revenue of $482.2 billion dollars last fiscal year, more than any other company on the planet. They have the largest and arguably most sophisticated supply chain management system of any private enterprise in human history. This system is at complete odds with the dollar store business model of buying and selling what’s available cheaply at any given point in time. There are certainly bargain brands at Walmart, but their main objective is to sell (for example) 64 ounces of Tide laundry detergent at a lower price than anyone else. A dollar store’s main objective is to sell 64 ounces of _any_ laundry detergent for two bucks. The business models are not compatible. It’s certainly not a company without controversy, but love 'em or hate 'em, Walmart is not in any danger for the foreseeable future. Including them in a “companies circling the bowl” thread is ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Mrdeals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Mrdeals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrdeals)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/118 "2015-10-18T02:56:02Z")
> [@Jake\_Jones](#): > > Including them in a “companies circling the bowl” thread is ridiculous. Calm down, this is an “IMHO thread” is it not? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/119 "2015-10-18T03:02:46Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > Hy-Vee You must be in the upper Midwest. Hy-Vee isn’t going anywhere any time soon that I can think of; they’re going strong in any city where they’re located. ---
**Author:** ![Mrdeals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Mrdeals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrdeals)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354/120 "2015-10-18T03:10:10Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > You must be in the upper Midwest. Hy-Vee isn’t going anywhere any time soon that I can think of; they’re going strong in any city where they’re located. The Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, they just opened 2 MASSIVE stores. Maybe too big for their own good, but impressive for sure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/companies-that-dont-have-much-time-left/734354.md?page=7)