There is no record indicating how much the colts balls deflated as the NFL doesn't actually record initial inflation numbers, merely a pass/fail, so balls inflated to the max, losing a similar level of pressure would now be near the min but still pass. That and the colts balls were stored in violation of NFL rules, in front of the sideline heater means they weren't actually stored in the same conditions as the Pats balls.
For the record of all the deflategate balls, 1 lost 2lbs (mysteriously the only one ever in possession of the Colts), a few more lost about 1lb and most were just slightly below the min of 12.5. Real world tests show even the 2lb loss was possible with the weather conditions and normal ball handling procedures but a 1lbs or less is almost guaranteed. Even using the standard formula for air pressure, forgetting the ball has a rubber balloon inside and there are other factors in play, the temperature difference alone accounts for almost a.5lbs drop in pressure which would make every ball inflated to the league minimum show as under inflated before the first pass was thrown.
As I stated earlier, the early reports of all the balls being significantly below the league minimum came out of the Indy media who were trying to drum up the controversy, in reality, most of the balls lost less than a lbs of pressure.
At this point only Colt/Seahawks fans or just general anti-Pat'ers are still holding onto deflategate as still a thing.
Real world tests duplicated the deflation of the footballs exactly; no extreme heating was required, just normal handling. Even the calculations back up the pressure changes when correctly applied.
Oddly enough, according to the NFL investigation the only ball that was under inflated by a full 2lbs was the ball that was at one point in the possession of the Colts, all other balls were under inflated by factions of that. It's also been noted that a lot of the initial reporting on the 'scandal' came from Indianapolis sources and not the NFL. Simply put this was a non-issue that some people in the Indy media wanted to make a federal case. Even the players themselves admitted they were simply outplayed by a better team.
I don't even like the Pats per se, I just like watching exciting football regardless of what teams are playing. I do occasionally root against the Seahawks simply because one of my friends is a rabid fan and it's always fun to push his buttons. You are sounding very much like him right now when even when the replay of a call clearly shows the penalty was deserved he will argue it till his last breath.
Each team can inflate their footballs as they want. The officials just ensure that at the time of testing they fall within the accepted psi range.
The Patriots have already said they like their footballs on the low side of the range while the Colts preferred their footballs inflated to the maximum allowable.
Since the NFL doesn't track the pressures of the balls they inspect, just make sure that they pass, their is no indication that the Colts balls also didn't lose similar pressure during the game.
There are also pictures of the Colts balls being stored near the sideline heaters which is a violation of the rules and would also help account for any differences in relative pressure drops between their footballs and the Patriots.
All this is moot since in real world testing similar deflation was found. That and as is mentioned in another response, this only affected the first half and the Patriots scored 28 points AFTER their footballs were replaced/re-inflated.
As Dwayne Allen tweeted:
They could have played with soap for balls and beat us. Simply the better team.
If stating his conclusion was all he did than that would be fine but in his tweet he was essentially attacking the Patriots organization and accusing them of cheating.
When you are making accusations against a particular group or person you better double check your math and you shouldn't be surprised that there's blowback when it's shown that you were in fact wrong.
I think you missed a lot of deflategate. While Tyson and to a lesser extent Nye claimed what you say was required, it was shown the simple process of handling the ball in a regular fashion was more than enough to explain the discrepancies in psi. They were no extremes required, just simple normal NFL practices.
And why is it suddenly T-Mobile or Panora's job to help TinyIndieSite.com? Neither are doing anything to prevent the service from running they just aren't giving it any of the special benefits that these two companies negotiated between them. You can still order TinyIndieSite.com's service, you just have to use your data cap to use it on their network like every other service on the internet and if it's such a great service then either T-Mobile will make a deal with them or one of their competitors will.
Companies enter into agreement like this all the time. Just because this is 'on the internet' doesn't make it anything special.
My cable company also has a partnership in a netflix like streaming service that I can get free if I happen to have the right internet package with them. It also shows up through their VOD service if I subscribe, bypassing all issues with download limits and bandwidth. Does that mean Netflix can complain because they aren't also getting that treatment? No. Why? Because I can also order Netflix and my cable company will stream that to me too without issue, I just have to pay the extra $8/mth to Netflix.
How this is any different from any two companies having a mutual agreement for any other type of promotion? Or because this involves "the internet" does that somehow make this a new novel marketing idea worthy of a patent.
A friend just got a new natural gas furnace installed and received a free hookup for a natural gas BBQ. Should Kingsford charcoal be able to complain because the gas company, in an attempt to sell him one of their BBQs, gave him the extra hookup?
My bank card gives me points towards free movie passes at one particular theater chain, can Landmark complain because I'm more likely to go to watch a movie at another theater for free than pay them $13?
Unless you are legally required to buy a Verizon phone and data plan and as long as Verizon and Pandora aren't losing money through their deal (effectively dumping their product to artificially lower costs and prevent competition) or stopping other streaming services from making similar deals with other providers than this is just an example of two companies coming up with a novel approach to increase their customer base and satisfaction.
It's not Pandora's job to make it easier for you to start up a competing product.
I'm failing to see how jumping immediately to having the government shut down a business deal between two companies is an aid to "free market" while allowing said companies from joining in a voluntary partnership is a violation of the same.
If you can show Verizon or Pandora lose money because of their partnership (effectively dumping their product to hurt competitors), or are blocking Spotify from forming a similar partnership with other companies then sure you have a case for government intervention. Otherwise this is a simple business deal that is pretty much the definition of free market; two companies improving their services to try and provide a benefit to their customers to increase their image in the marketplace vs. their competition. Or should the government step in and fine Costco and Ford because my Costco card can get me $1000 off a new Ford but not a new Chevy or BWM?
Having the government jump in to try to make things fair is pretty much the antithesis of making the market free. There are times when government intervention is required but simply because your competition had a better idea than you that made their product more attractive is not one of them.
I don't think it's hard to argue the rich don't get more from US taxes at all. The rich tend not to have to rely on social services as much and often bypass government funded services for private ones (schools, security, medical, etc..).
They definitely benefit more from tax BREAKS but not necessarily the taxes themselves. Tax breaks are just a byproduct of a the very scaled tax system you deem fair because in a system where everyone is treated differently, everyone believes they should be paying less in tax than someone else is and will do everything in their power to try and make that happen; the rich just tend to have more power and therefore have more chances to tailor the tax code to their needs.
The easiest flat rate plan that also doesn't hurt the poor or middle class would be simply to have an adequate personal exemption limit. For example, the first $20k any person makes is entirely tax free and then you pay 20% on ALL income after that.
Politicians don't like flat taxes though because it cuts out a very large part of their funding; special interest groups looking for favorable tax breaks for their members. No tax breaks = less money spent on bribing (excuse me, lobbying) pols to pass legislation favoring one group over another.
Comcast is free to upgrade or not upgrade the lines as required, as is the other involved ISP. Neither were willing to pay the cost because Comcast didn't want to foot the bill to provide extra service to another ISPs client (Netflix).
They didn't degrade the service, just decided not to upgrade it when the other ISP wouldn't foot part of the bill.
So if i decide to host a Netflix like service off my home computer but don't bother paying my ISP for a full business line then you feel you can blame Comcast for my not wanting to pay up?
All internet traffic has a sender and receiver and both have a part in ensuring adequate speeds. In this case Netflix's ISP wasn't willing to spend the extra money to cover the overage their traffic was causing on the line between them and Comcast's network.
They had an agreed upon bandwidth agreement and because Netflix was in such demand they were exceeding it. Comcast could of, out of the kindness of their hearts, shouldered the cost and allowed the extra bandwidth but that's not the way almost any real business works. They told Cogent they wanted to be paid to expand the agreed upon bandwidth limit and Cogent said no so they went to Netflix and made a deal directly with them. End result, everyone's happy except the people who wanted Comcast to foot the bill for another ISPs cost cutting measure.
The new FCC rules have absolutely no impact on this type of dealing. They can't force an ISP to improve their performance only dictate that they don't unjustly modify the traffic once it's on their network. In Netflix's case, it was the getting the traffic onto their network where the problem was occurring.
Netflix's ISP and Comcast couldn't reach an agreement to increase their bandwidth allotment so when demand increased a bottleneck occurred. Netflix simply went around their own ISP and paid for direct access to Comcast's network.
Actually, it was Netflix running out of bandwidth, or rather their ISP(s). Basically they went above and beyond the data limits set by their peering policy and refused to pay the overage fees so Comcast didn't expand their bandwidth. Netflix got around this by signing a contract to allow them to host some servers on Comcast's network and essentially bypass their ISP(s). That is all still perfectly legal under the new FCC rules.
So it had nothing to do with your agreement with Comcast, or Netflix agreement with the ISP, it was a failure to reach an agreement between multiple ISPs. It also would impact all data and not just Netflix traffic between those networks but it's harder to see if your web page takes and extra 2 tenths of a second to load then if your HD streaming movie gets jumpy.
If I can only use Canada Post because of my location and buy something from you and you exclusively use Fed EX (which has no location near me) then any money I happen to pay Canada Post or you has no real impact on the fact Fed Ex, at some point during shipping, has to have a separate contract for delivery through CP to get me my parcel. If their willing to foot the bill they can pay for next day delivery or they can cheap out and pay for normal land delivery. Nether of us really gets much say in what choice Fed Ex makes.
From my understanding Comcast wasn't throttling Netflix, they just didn't upgrade the lines between their network and Netflix servers to handle the extra load. Netflix then paid to have their servers added directly to Comcast's network. That is still legal under the new FCC rules.
That's the same as me living on a dirt road 5 miles off the main highway and complaining that the mail truck slows to 20 mph when coming down the road to deliver to me whereas he drives 55 mph on the main road when delivering to other people. The county isn't 'throttling' my mail because they won't pave my driveway. If I want to get my mail faster I can either put a mailbox at the end of my road near the highway or move my house.
But to too many US "law enforcement" agencies the fact a criminal may also do something similar gives them enough leeway to seize your money and use it as their own.
Civil forfeitures laws in the US are so ridiculous that if you happen to get pulled over for speeding on the way back from selling your motorcycle for cash, the cops can seize the money "just in case", or more related to this depositing issue, if you happen to run a small store and do nightly deposits under 10k (because that's what was in the till at the end of the day) they will seize your accounts.
Even when they know with certainty there was no crime committed and you have all the legal justification in the world to have done what you did with your money they will gladly seize it and make you spend the next 6 months+ fighting to get it back.
You may be unaware but there are people who live outside of the US, I happen to be one of them.
I think you also have anger issues since nothing I said implied or stated any bigotry, just an understanding that it's a bad idea to try and regulate behavior. If a person wants to not provide service for someone else I say go ahead because it's not societies job to make you a good person. As long as the government isn't involved with artificially propping you up and creating barriers against competition, if you treat any group of people unfairly the laws of supply and demand will eventually lead to someone else moving in to take up that slack; especially in today's internet age where Amazon or similar companies can get you almost anything next day.
That's not to say there can't be some laws about how your business operates, but when it comes to choosing clientele that should be left up to the owner and let the people in the community decide if they want to patronize their establishment or not.
I happen to have a little more faith that in general, communities can fix their own problems if left to themselves but I'm sure your way works well too, since nothing bad has ever happened when big brother decides to put their nose in peoples business.
A lot, if not most, of the segregation in the south was due to government intervention, not business decisions. Jim Crow laws dictated the layouts of restaurants, public transport, washroom access etc..
In general, businesses go where the money is and as soon as any segment of society has disposable income either existing businesses will adjust to cater to that new clientele or new businesses will open to provide the demanded service.
I would say go ahead. Refuse to service whoever you want for whatever reason you want, it's your right and should remain your right whether you run a business or not.
Unless you are using the government to restrict others from competing against you, if you choose to be intolerant of any group then someone will most likely come along to provide a similar service to those you exclude. If enough people find your actions offensive than your new competitor will most likely run you out of business. That's the way things are suppose to work. The markets will usually find an answer unless the government steps in to prevent them.
I used to buy all my hard drives and occasional RAM upgrades at FS and BB because of their price match policy. While they won't price match real computer stores directly (because real computer stores don't sell retail versions) occasionally one would have a sale where their prices were comparable or even better and then I'd go to whichever ones didn't have the sale and get their 110% price match.
Because of their astronomical markups, when one would actually sell something for real market prices, it wasn't unusual to have a price match that would result in an extra $10 - $15 in your pocket compared to a real computer store.
The check out line of Loblaws (Canadian grocery store chain) has better and cheaper HDMI cables than FS and BB and even they are overpriced @ $5 each but if you absolutely need an HDMI cable and a box of mini-wheats and don't feel like making two trips then you go with what's available. At FS and BB prices for cables, I absolutely would make a second trip to another store.
I shopped at both (since the FS and BB closest to me are full sized stores 30 feet from each other) and always got them to price match. They don't price match open box or liquidation items (which most other price match policies don't either) but for everything else I never had an issue.
I routinely got them to price match each other since they often staggered their sales so an item on sale at FS one week would be on sale at BB the next. Besides the extra 10% off the price match gave, it saved me having to run around town to the location where a sale item was in stock.
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There is no record indicating how much the colts balls deflated as the NFL doesn't actually record initial inflation numbers, merely a pass/fail, so balls inflated to the max, losing a similar level of pressure would now be near the min but still pass. That and the colts balls were stored in violation of NFL rules, in front of the sideline heater means they weren't actually stored in the same conditions as the Pats balls.
For the record of all the deflategate balls, 1 lost 2lbs (mysteriously the only one ever in possession of the Colts), a few more lost about 1lb and most were just slightly below the min of 12.5. Real world tests show even the 2lb loss was possible with the weather conditions and normal ball handling procedures but a 1lbs or less is almost guaranteed. Even using the standard formula for air pressure, forgetting the ball has a rubber balloon inside and there are other factors in play, the temperature difference alone accounts for almost a .5lbs drop in pressure which would make every ball inflated to the league minimum show as under inflated before the first pass was thrown.
As I stated earlier, the early reports of all the balls being significantly below the league minimum came out of the Indy media who were trying to drum up the controversy, in reality, most of the balls lost less than a lbs of pressure.
At this point only Colt/Seahawks fans or just general anti-Pat'ers are still holding onto deflategate as still a thing.
Real world tests duplicated the deflation of the footballs exactly; no extreme heating was required, just normal handling. Even the calculations back up the pressure changes when correctly applied.
Oddly enough, according to the NFL investigation the only ball that was under inflated by a full 2lbs was the ball that was at one point in the possession of the Colts, all other balls were under inflated by factions of that. It's also been noted that a lot of the initial reporting on the 'scandal' came from Indianapolis sources and not the NFL. Simply put this was a non-issue that some people in the Indy media wanted to make a federal case. Even the players themselves admitted they were simply outplayed by a better team.
I don't even like the Pats per se, I just like watching exciting football regardless of what teams are playing. I do occasionally root against the Seahawks simply because one of my friends is a rabid fan and it's always fun to push his buttons. You are sounding very much like him right now when even when the replay of a call clearly shows the penalty was deserved he will argue it till his last breath.
Each team can inflate their footballs as they want. The officials just ensure that at the time of testing they fall within the accepted psi range.
The Patriots have already said they like their footballs on the low side of the range while the Colts preferred their footballs inflated to the maximum allowable.
Since the NFL doesn't track the pressures of the balls they inspect, just make sure that they pass, their is no indication that the Colts balls also didn't lose similar pressure during the game.
There are also pictures of the Colts balls being stored near the sideline heaters which is a violation of the rules and would also help account for any differences in relative pressure drops between their footballs and the Patriots.
All this is moot since in real world testing similar deflation was found. That and as is mentioned in another response, this only affected the first half and the Patriots scored 28 points AFTER their footballs were replaced/re-inflated.
As Dwayne Allen tweeted:
They could have played with soap for balls and beat us. Simply the better team.
If stating his conclusion was all he did than that would be fine but in his tweet he was essentially attacking the Patriots organization and accusing them of cheating.
When you are making accusations against a particular group or person you better double check your math and you shouldn't be surprised that there's blowback when it's shown that you were in fact wrong.
I think you missed a lot of deflategate. While Tyson and to a lesser extent Nye claimed what you say was required, it was shown the simple process of handling the ball in a regular fashion was more than enough to explain the discrepancies in psi. They were no extremes required, just simple normal NFL practices.
And why is it suddenly T-Mobile or Panora's job to help TinyIndieSite.com? Neither are doing anything to prevent the service from running they just aren't giving it any of the special benefits that these two companies negotiated between them. You can still order TinyIndieSite.com's service, you just have to use your data cap to use it on their network like every other service on the internet and if it's such a great service then either T-Mobile will make a deal with them or one of their competitors will.
Companies enter into agreement like this all the time. Just because this is 'on the internet' doesn't make it anything special.
My cable company also has a partnership in a netflix like streaming service that I can get free if I happen to have the right internet package with them. It also shows up through their VOD service if I subscribe, bypassing all issues with download limits and bandwidth. Does that mean Netflix can complain because they aren't also getting that treatment? No. Why? Because I can also order Netflix and my cable company will stream that to me too without issue, I just have to pay the extra $8/mth to Netflix.
How this is any different from any two companies having a mutual agreement for any other type of promotion? Or because this involves "the internet" does that somehow make this a new novel marketing idea worthy of a patent.
A friend just got a new natural gas furnace installed and received a free hookup for a natural gas BBQ. Should Kingsford charcoal be able to complain because the gas company, in an attempt to sell him one of their BBQs, gave him the extra hookup?
My bank card gives me points towards free movie passes at one particular theater chain, can Landmark complain because I'm more likely to go to watch a movie at another theater for free than pay them $13?
Unless you are legally required to buy a Verizon phone and data plan and as long as Verizon and Pandora aren't losing money through their deal (effectively dumping their product to artificially lower costs and prevent competition) or stopping other streaming services from making similar deals with other providers than this is just an example of two companies coming up with a novel approach to increase their customer base and satisfaction.
It's not Pandora's job to make it easier for you to start up a competing product.
I'm failing to see how jumping immediately to having the government shut down a business deal between two companies is an aid to "free market" while allowing said companies from joining in a voluntary partnership is a violation of the same.
If you can show Verizon or Pandora lose money because of their partnership (effectively dumping their product to hurt competitors), or are blocking Spotify from forming a similar partnership with other companies then sure you have a case for government intervention. Otherwise this is a simple business deal that is pretty much the definition of free market; two companies improving their services to try and provide a benefit to their customers to increase their image in the marketplace vs. their competition. Or should the government step in and fine Costco and Ford because my Costco card can get me $1000 off a new Ford but not a new Chevy or BWM?
Having the government jump in to try to make things fair is pretty much the antithesis of making the market free. There are times when government intervention is required but simply because your competition had a better idea than you that made their product more attractive is not one of them.
I don't think it's hard to argue the rich don't get more from US taxes at all. The rich tend not to have to rely on social services as much and often bypass government funded services for private ones (schools, security, medical, etc..).
They definitely benefit more from tax BREAKS but not necessarily the taxes themselves. Tax breaks are just a byproduct of a the very scaled tax system you deem fair because in a system where everyone is treated differently, everyone believes they should be paying less in tax than someone else is and will do everything in their power to try and make that happen; the rich just tend to have more power and therefore have more chances to tailor the tax code to their needs.
The easiest flat rate plan that also doesn't hurt the poor or middle class would be simply to have an adequate personal exemption limit. For example, the first $20k any person makes is entirely tax free and then you pay 20% on ALL income after that.
Politicians don't like flat taxes though because it cuts out a very large part of their funding; special interest groups looking for favorable tax breaks for their members. No tax breaks = less money spent on bribing (excuse me, lobbying) pols to pass legislation favoring one group over another.
The end result was Netflix placing their server directly on Comcast's network, hence the not so miraculous disappearance of the problem.
Comcast is free to upgrade or not upgrade the lines as required, as is the other involved ISP. Neither were willing to pay the cost because Comcast didn't want to foot the bill to provide extra service to another ISPs client (Netflix).
They didn't degrade the service, just decided not to upgrade it when the other ISP wouldn't foot part of the bill.
So if i decide to host a Netflix like service off my home computer but don't bother paying my ISP for a full business line then you feel you can blame Comcast for my not wanting to pay up?
All internet traffic has a sender and receiver and both have a part in ensuring adequate speeds. In this case Netflix's ISP wasn't willing to spend the extra money to cover the overage their traffic was causing on the line between them and Comcast's network.
They had an agreed upon bandwidth agreement and because Netflix was in such demand they were exceeding it. Comcast could of, out of the kindness of their hearts, shouldered the cost and allowed the extra bandwidth but that's not the way almost any real business works. They told Cogent they wanted to be paid to expand the agreed upon bandwidth limit and Cogent said no so they went to Netflix and made a deal directly with them. End result, everyone's happy except the people who wanted Comcast to foot the bill for another ISPs cost cutting measure.
The new FCC rules have absolutely no impact on this type of dealing. They can't force an ISP to improve their performance only dictate that they don't unjustly modify the traffic once it's on their network. In Netflix's case, it was the getting the traffic onto their network where the problem was occurring.
Netflix's ISP and Comcast couldn't reach an agreement to increase their bandwidth allotment so when demand increased a bottleneck occurred. Netflix simply went around their own ISP and paid for direct access to Comcast's network.
Actually, it was Netflix running out of bandwidth, or rather their ISP(s). Basically they went above and beyond the data limits set by their peering policy and refused to pay the overage fees so Comcast didn't expand their bandwidth. Netflix got around this by signing a contract to allow them to host some servers on Comcast's network and essentially bypass their ISP(s). That is all still perfectly legal under the new FCC rules.
So it had nothing to do with your agreement with Comcast, or Netflix agreement with the ISP, it was a failure to reach an agreement between multiple ISPs. It also would impact all data and not just Netflix traffic between those networks but it's harder to see if your web page takes and extra 2 tenths of a second to load then if your HD streaming movie gets jumpy.
If I can only use Canada Post because of my location and buy something from you and you exclusively use Fed EX (which has no location near me) then any money I happen to pay Canada Post or you has no real impact on the fact Fed Ex, at some point during shipping, has to have a separate contract for delivery through CP to get me my parcel. If their willing to foot the bill they can pay for next day delivery or they can cheap out and pay for normal land delivery. Nether of us really gets much say in what choice Fed Ex makes.
From my understanding Comcast wasn't throttling Netflix, they just didn't upgrade the lines between their network and Netflix servers to handle the extra load. Netflix then paid to have their servers added directly to Comcast's network. That is still legal under the new FCC rules.
That's the same as me living on a dirt road 5 miles off the main highway and complaining that the mail truck slows to 20 mph when coming down the road to deliver to me whereas he drives 55 mph on the main road when delivering to other people. The county isn't 'throttling' my mail because they won't pave my driveway. If I want to get my mail faster I can either put a mailbox at the end of my road near the highway or move my house.
But to too many US "law enforcement" agencies the fact a criminal may also do something similar gives them enough leeway to seize your money and use it as their own.
Civil forfeitures laws in the US are so ridiculous that if you happen to get pulled over for speeding on the way back from selling your motorcycle for cash, the cops can seize the money "just in case", or more related to this depositing issue, if you happen to run a small store and do nightly deposits under 10k (because that's what was in the till at the end of the day) they will seize your accounts.
Even when they know with certainty there was no crime committed and you have all the legal justification in the world to have done what you did with your money they will gladly seize it and make you spend the next 6 months+ fighting to get it back.
Wasn't that NCIS proper? NCIS NO (easily the worst of the bunch) was all about a morgue hostage crisis.
I was just shocked they mentioned Fast and Furious by name at all.
And then they just ordered the companies servers shut down on their own presumed authority.
I believe the case was solved because the criminals used an XBox to threaten them to restart the service.
You may be unaware but there are people who live outside of the US, I happen to be one of them.
I think you also have anger issues since nothing I said implied or stated any bigotry, just an understanding that it's a bad idea to try and regulate behavior. If a person wants to not provide service for someone else I say go ahead because it's not societies job to make you a good person. As long as the government isn't involved with artificially propping you up and creating barriers against competition, if you treat any group of people unfairly the laws of supply and demand will eventually lead to someone else moving in to take up that slack; especially in today's internet age where Amazon or similar companies can get you almost anything next day.
That's not to say there can't be some laws about how your business operates, but when it comes to choosing clientele that should be left up to the owner and let the people in the community decide if they want to patronize their establishment or not.
I happen to have a little more faith that in general, communities can fix their own problems if left to themselves but I'm sure your way works well too, since nothing bad has ever happened when big brother decides to put their nose in peoples business.
A lot, if not most, of the segregation in the south was due to government intervention, not business decisions. Jim Crow laws dictated the layouts of restaurants, public transport, washroom access etc..
In general, businesses go where the money is and as soon as any segment of society has disposable income either existing businesses will adjust to cater to that new clientele or new businesses will open to provide the demanded service.
I would say go ahead. Refuse to service whoever you want for whatever reason you want, it's your right and should remain your right whether you run a business or not.
Unless you are using the government to restrict others from competing against you, if you choose to be intolerant of any group then someone will most likely come along to provide a similar service to those you exclude. If enough people find your actions offensive than your new competitor will most likely run you out of business. That's the way things are suppose to work. The markets will usually find an answer unless the government steps in to prevent them.
I used to buy all my hard drives and occasional RAM upgrades at FS and BB because of their price match policy. While they won't price match real computer stores directly (because real computer stores don't sell retail versions) occasionally one would have a sale where their prices were comparable or even better and then I'd go to whichever ones didn't have the sale and get their 110% price match.
Because of their astronomical markups, when one would actually sell something for real market prices, it wasn't unusual to have a price match that would result in an extra $10 - $15 in your pocket compared to a real computer store.
The check out line of Loblaws (Canadian grocery store chain) has better and cheaper HDMI cables than FS and BB and even they are overpriced @ $5 each but if you absolutely need an HDMI cable and a box of mini-wheats and don't feel like making two trips then you go with what's available. At FS and BB prices for cables, I absolutely would make a second trip to another store.
I shopped at both (since the FS and BB closest to me are full sized stores 30 feet from each other) and always got them to price match. They don't price match open box or liquidation items (which most other price match policies don't either) but for everything else I never had an issue.
I routinely got them to price match each other since they often staggered their sales so an item on sale at FS one week would be on sale at BB the next. Besides the extra 10% off the price match gave, it saved me having to run around town to the location where a sale item was in stock.