Remember when businesses didn't screw (with) their customers?

It's been a couple of months since my last rant, and No Man's Sky hasn't come out yet... how about we examine a couple of nuisances I came across on my last trip to Seattle?

Between one thing and another, it had been about 2 years since I last got "out of town" (note to self, that's way too long for your continued mental equilibrium).  Things tend to change over that span of time, and, when it comes to paying for goods and services, those changes are usually either good (for the customer), or at least ignorable (anybody out there use a cell-phone based "wallet" yet?).  Catching two such changes that were neither put a bit of a damper on my trip.

First, a friend and I went to check out an event near the Mariners' stadium.  Naturally, for all we were there many hours before the day's game started, event pricing was in play for all the parking lots nearby... but, for whatever other nuisances might be in play, event pricing does mean a fixed price for the day's parking, normally.  We find a little lot with a sign saying $25 event parking (robbery, basically, but marginally tolerable), and it's even got an electronic pay station (convenience to the consumer, that's probably a good thing).  Choose the event payment and... up comes an extra $5 plus in taxes, which may or may not be legit, but would normally be included in the event price.  As far as we were concerned, that's pretty well a bait and switch, so we moved on (and, luckily, found free street parking within a few blocks).

Next day, it was time to head home, and I decided to fill up the car before I hit the road.  The place I used last time was boarded up, but there was a nice new Shell station nearby, so I gave it a try.  New pumps with large, easy-to-read color displays on them, what could be wrong with that?  Well, no sooner do I put in my card info and choose what I want, I'm surprised to have a commercial start up on the screen, with audio... and there's no pressure on the line.  Best case, this smart new pump was too stupid to display that it was out of the gas I wanted... worst case, they expected you to sit through who knows how many commercials before the would deign to give you the gas you wanted to pay them for.  I verified the same behavior on another pump at the station, just to make sure it wasn't a glitch with the one pump, then got the hell out of there and gassed up elsewhere... and I don't see myself willingly going back to a Shell station any time in the near future.

So, remember, all you synergizers and revenue enhancers out there in corporation land... you start playing games with us consumers before you've got the money in hand, we can still walk.  Sometimes, if you're bad enough, even if you have some of our money, we'll walk and never come back.