Like the bit says, even when the phrase was becoming popularized, people saw the inherent flaw in it.
The customer is right, within reason.
You are complaining about a cashless business, one that won't accept the minted currency of the nation.
Which could be a fair complaint.
But if we are to hold to the maxim that the customer is always right, then if I insist on paying in bits of string, then I'm right. If I insist that the value of what I'm taking is far less than you think, then I'm right. At some point, you have to admit that there is a line.
And businesses don't want to insert middlemen, they're dealing with them just like we are. But they're getting to the point where the cost of dealing with those middlemen are less than or equal to dealing with hard cash.
Like most adages and slogans it's the core idea that matters, not to take it so literally as to ignore fraud or allow payment in string. The idea being the business should try and meet the customer's needs.
Businesses do want to insert middlemen where they can externalise something else. Either to move another cost or process to the customer or to reduce staff. We've seen the near abolition of customer service by adopting customer service departments that move the activity onto dedicated, and lowly paid staff or outsourced entirely.
For most of the fifty years since Visa started businesses have been expected to take credit cards, even though they cost more to process for all that time. In the UK business could not charge extra for taking cards. The second cash costs more it's OK to abandon it and go Visa/MC only?
Yes, it seems they do want to insert middlemen. Visa of course are encouraging this.
> The idea being the business should try and meet the customer's needs.
But they're choosing their customers with this action. If you can't buy stuff from them, you are not a customer.
> For most of the fifty years since Visa started businesses have been expected to take credit cards, even though they cost more to process for all that time.
Because those were the customers who were spending the money. They didn't have to, they chose to. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that fast food establishments refused to take them. That is a recent change.
Like the bit says, even when the phrase was becoming popularized, people saw the inherent flaw in it.
The customer is right, within reason.
You are complaining about a cashless business, one that won't accept the minted currency of the nation.
Which could be a fair complaint.
But if we are to hold to the maxim that the customer is always right, then if I insist on paying in bits of string, then I'm right. If I insist that the value of what I'm taking is far less than you think, then I'm right. At some point, you have to admit that there is a line.
And businesses don't want to insert middlemen, they're dealing with them just like we are. But they're getting to the point where the cost of dealing with those middlemen are less than or equal to dealing with hard cash.