In the small business dominated world of 40 years ago trust was a fundamental economic asset. A bad seller would immediately get a bad reputation and it would b

In the small business dominated world of 40 years ago trust was a fundamental economic asset. A bad seller would immediately get a bad reputation and it would be known around the community. People trusted each other because that's how society has worked for millennia, to the point of tribalism, we are never allowed to scam "our" people for we might be ostracized and literally be in mortal peril outside the tribe. A handshake and a look in the eye says: "I'm staking my family's livelihood on this". Then the tech revolution happened and took the corporatist economic model to massive new levels. Large capital owners could more effectively circumvent the lack of social capital (trust) by investing in technology. Communication tools allowed them to better manage sprawling business empires and reach the consumer directly. The mom&pop gave way to the franchise and the retail chain, it's social capital was undercut by media-induced branding and billion dollar advertising campaigns. For the national chain, it's largely irrelevant if some old guy got suckered into buying crap by an underpaid employee looking to make a commission. He might complain to his neighbors but unless the media takes an interest, it's not an existential threat to the corporation with national level PR and advertising. The chain has other things to worry about, like expanding faster than the competition and hiring even more cheap & sleazy guys capable of producing income. The end game of this brave new world is precisely the "everything store" against which no mom&pop can compete. Our generation instinctively mistrusts the corporate drone regardless of it's physical or online incarnation. Your father is the product of a different social arrangement.