No, no, no, Apple, don’t make them cheaper. Would Bentley sell more Bentleys if they were half the price? Maybe, but they’d make half as much money as Lord Snooty wouldn’t want to be seen in a car his butler could afford. If Waitrose sold stuff at Aldi prices to pull in Aldi shoppers it would be quickly abandoned by its regular truffle-oil and tahini buyers. Innovation and quality is what you need, Mr Mac. Which I guess is not so easy as, alas, you’re Job-less these days.
Here’s the flip side. Should a business not have the right to choose whom it serves? If you as a client, or more likely potential client, rub us up the wrong way, are a declared anti-vaxxer or support the barges, can we not, as a business, say ‘Be Gone’?
Are workers working from home more or less productive than those catching the 7.02am to London Bridge every day? ‘Probably sitting at home in their bleedin’ jim-jams’, said someone recently of a less-than-helpful call centre employee, the assumption being that, were they surrounded by colleagues and with a manager cracking the whip, he or she would have sorted his energy bill more efficiently.
Here’s a future problem that will doubtless be kicked down the road until it becomes a crisis. There’s a whole generation who may never be able to afford to buy their own homes.