These grocery stores will inevitably run at a loss and/or need to be subsidised - costing the taxpayers money - because the state couldn't possibly run them as efficiently as a private enterprise competing in the free market.

(Not saying I agree.)

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 hours ago

The reasoning is actually that a food desert means greater revenues from a larger market circle for the desert wanderers to travel so they can eat. Company gets most of the profit without offering convenient service from the captives.

There is zero reason to run grocery stores at a loss. Competition that doesn't extort as strongly as other cartel members does screw over the cartel.

[–] unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 5 points 19 hours ago

Being government-run, the store will obviously have:

a poor selection of products leaving you with no choice
ugly packaging meaning only the poors will go there
long waiting lists for entry
yearly, quarterly and monthly subscriptions, all required and renewed seperately, taking hours in a queue and three trips to the social services hq each to renew
quotas on all items, groups of items and time limited - whenever one is passed the rest don't matter
no added value like delivery or good customer service
no market research or innovation
no incentive to do better or improve service
an active loss of money due to bueraucratic ineficiencies

(Likewise, also spined it (almost) as much as possible.)