I think the stuff they put on your computer to get you to buy stuff is called "crap-ware". I have gone through my desktop display and deleted all the icons for stuff like that. If any programs try to interfere with what I'm doing, I uninstall them. There is one, though, that I can't get rid of. It comes on every night and asks me if I want to update my Java program. I have tried to uninstall Java, since I never use it, but it won't uninstall. I asked my local computer guy about it and he said that I can't get rid of Java, and that I shouldn't anyway. He recommended that I accept the update because it might come in handy someday. I tried to do that, but the update didn't work either, so now I just click "no" when it asks me to update. It's a minor annoyance, I'm just glad that I don't have more stuff like that. I don't think that I have any apps. If I do, they must not be intrusive or it seems I would know that I have them. I don't think I'm connected to The Cloud either.
I have heard bad things about Walmart on the internet, but our local one seems to be different. Of course they don't pay their help much, but neither does anything else around here since the paper mill closed. Sometimes it's hard to find a clerk when you need help but, once you do, they are always happy to be of service. Before I took over the grocery shopping, I only went to Walmart when I wanted something that I couldn't find anywhere else. Now, since I go there once a week anyway, I pick up some of my own stuff while I'm there. Since our town is so small, Walmart is no farther away than anything else. There is another supermarket right next door to Walmart, it's had several name changes over the years and is currently called "Family Fare". The prices are higher, but my hypothetical wife says that their milk, meat, and produce is of a better quality. There are also a few items that Walmart doesn't carry, so I get them at Family Fare too.
When Walmart first came here, and when they later expanded to include groceries, people were predicting that all our other stores would shut down, but the opposite has happened. Some of the family businesses have close over the years, but that's only because the owners were ready to retire and their kids didn't want to take over. We've got more stores now than we've ever had, in spite of the fact that our population hasn't increased in decades and actually decreased a bit in the last census. Now they are planning to build a great big Meijer complex just south of the city limits. I went to one of those in Petoskey once, and I think you could fit the whole town of Cheboygan in there. I hadn't been through that neighborhood in some years and was surprised to see that it's now all shopping malls as far as the eye can see. Petoskey is a bigger town than Cheboygan, but not enough to support all those stores. I have no idea where their customers come from.
I remember in Chicago that it was not uncommon to see a gas station on each of the four corners of an intersection. Then there were all those car dealerships lined up on Western Avenue for miles. My father, who knew about stuff like that, said people like to shop in places where there's lots of the same kinds of stores. I suppose they figure that, if one store doesn't have what they want, another one will.
Back in Cheboygan, right across the street from the Walmart and the Family Fare, is a Walgreen. When they first built it I thought they were nuts. Who is going to go there when there's two stores selling the same merchandise right across the street? Well, they've been there for a decade or so, and they seem to be doing fine. Their specialty is cheap prescription drugs, and now the other two stores have lowered their prescription drug prices too. Family Fare will even give you some prescriptions for free. That's right, for free! I asked their druggist how they can make any money that way, and he said that it was an incentive to get people into the store, where they will hopefully buy something else.
On the other end of town we have a K-Mart. It's been there longer than the Walmart, and their prices are generally a little higher. We go there only when we want something that we can't find anywhere else. There are so few customers in there that it's downright spooky. It's so quiet that you can hear your own footsteps when you walk down the aisles. For the life of me, I don't know how they stay in business. Some years ago, when the parent company went bankrupt, they were shutting down K-Marts all over the country but, for some reason, they kept ours open. Some time later, Sears bought K-Mart, but it hasn't seemed to have effected out local store. I have advanced the theory that the place is a front for some nefarious activity, but my hypothetical wife says that I'm just paranoid.
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