Having a Québécois convenience store company try to take over a Japenese convenience store company, who recently took over an American convenience store company just feels like the crazy future capitalism presented us but never fulfilled. Instead, we're usually just dealing with late-stage capitalism.
Reminds me of White Hen convenience stores - 7-Eleven bought them out and then shut down all of the stores. Didn't replace them with more stores, just left the whole area, full on Cartman "fuck you guys I'm going home" mode.
They've already announced that they're converting a ton of 711s here to be more like the Japanese ones including using the same suppliers. I hope we get it, Japanese conbinis are on another level.
Is this why I am seeing so many videos talking about Japanese 7-11s recently? Watched a few videos on LEARNING JAPANESE and now my YT feed is full of things showing how cool 7-11 is over there. lol
When I was last in Japan, I basically lived out of konbinis. I mean, I also ate at restaurants all the time because it was so cheap compared to Australia, but for everything else, why bother cooking in my tiny-ass apartment when I can walk a few minutes and get a full, fresh meal AND some decent sake for less than a single dinner back home? They're fantastic. Plus they all had ATMs that could use to get more cash out.
Also, when my flight home was delayed by a typhoon, I was able to eat full meals for a few days on just thirty bucks from the konbinis in the airport. No price gouging. Back home that would have gotten me a shitty sandwich at best.