When Keyana Sapp, 31, went shopping for a new backpack, the brands he remembered as a kid were just not the same.
He researched the companies, from North Face to JanSport and Eastpak, and soon realized they were all owned by the VF Corporation after a wave of acquisitions in the 2000s. After a Reddit post he made about his discovery picked up traction, he started looking at other types of consumer goods – cookware, shoes, tools, clothing.
“It seems like that was a story that just repeated in every industry,” Sapp told the Guardian.
It’s everything. We’re in the end-stages of capitalism. The trope I always bring out it that my previous bank location had 13 teller stations that were ripped out (no computer) and two tellers with a long line.
This is the “We’ll give it and you’ll take it,” phase.