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>what is your edge in this case where your competitor is now bigger and can handle things like a vet quitting as they have a bunch that roam from practice to pr

>what is your edge in this case where your competitor is now bigger and can handle things like a vet quitting as they have a bunch that roam from practice to practice. Or they can handle buying a new machine for millions while the bank won't lend to you due to your shrinking margins. To answer your rhetorical question: 1. People would rather deal with neighbors than with PE or megacorps, and will do so to the extent that the difference in price is tolerable (and to the extent that they even know their neighbors.) 2. Management layers and performance based incentives are huge costs that small enterprises should be mostly able to avoid. 3. Owning a business can have a really compelling advantage at tax time in the ranges of professional incomes we're discussing. 4. Owner-operated businesses should be able to integrate with family life, allowing dads to spend time closer to their kids, which should be another advantage in favor of professionals going it on their own. 5. Owner-operated businesses can also operate with much more efficient facilities (housing over top of business) when not forbidden by zoning or other regulations. On the other hand, people like steady salaries and set working hours. They like leaving work at work. And, especially as these professions increasingly see their schools dominated by women, many of these professionals really like stepping away from work or going part time for 5-10 years around their 30s.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
RE 1: Customers have zero influence on this. If you have a pet, you'll need a vet, and if the owner of the owner-operated clinic next to you gets an offer they can't refuse... I can't imagine you'll find some other owner-operated clinic to visit out of spite, where the now-corporate one next to you is open, and perhaps even cheaper. RE 2-5: These are all rounding errors compared to economies of scale the PE-backed companies have. Also, those PE roll-ups target businesses whose owners are at the stage of life when they're just happy to take a big payout and retire. Tax time advantages and spending some time with kids (which is arguably less than salaried employees of the corpo-clinic will have) can't possibly beat being able to not work at all anymore, live comfortably, and have all the time you want for kids.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > I can't imagine you'll find some other owner-operated clinic to visit out of spite No, but I did organise a few patients to grant our vet a loan to open a new facility. (It wound up creating some Michael Scott Paper Company drama between the vet and her former colleagues, which was interesting.)
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    People like you are our last line of defense on the ground. Sadly, I don't think there's enough of such people to hold the line against PEs doing targeted divide-and-conquer on specific market segments, one by one.
- QuarterReptile 3y ago
  >RE 1: Customers have zero influence on this. If you have a pet, you'll need a vet, and if the owner of the owner-operated clinic next to you gets an offer they can't refuse... I can't imagine you'll find some other owner-operated clinic to visit out of spite, where the now-corporate one next to you is open, and perhaps even cheaper. I have seldom gone to the nearest vet/pediatrician/hospital. Inevitably I try it, it's bad, and then I spend time driving to some place further away that I actually like. And I drive an average of 4000 miles per year; with the median driver traveling some multiple of that each year, I can only assume that most people are way more willing than I to shop around.
Workaccount2 3y ago
People in general do not give a fuck about anything besides price, and behind that, convenience. However, people spend a lot of time talking about how they care about more than just price. The actual manifestation is tiny though.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  People care about multiple things on different time horizons. There’s nothing contradictory in saying, “I would prefer a world not owned entirely by one PE firm” and “I will generally seek the lowest acceptable prices.”
  - PeterisP 3y ago
    The contradiction is not between saying two different things about different time horizons, but saying one thing and doing another. It matters little what you someone says with their words if they say the opposite with their money - if in practice someone is seeking the lowest acceptable prices, then their "revealed preference", to use the technical term, is that they're actually preferring a world where that shop is run by a PE firm, as they're actively helping make that world happen. And sure, their stated preference may well be that a world not owned entirely by one PE firm, but really, who cares about the stated preference that doesn't get reflected in acts in the real world? Those are just empty, misleading lies if the actual choices show the opposite. It's like saying "I prefer a world where I will lose weight" while buying a 12-pack of donuts for lunch.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      That term isn’t “the” technical term. It’s a term from economics to try to explain apparently contradictory behaviors. Gee wiz, what a great explanation! “People just don’t actually prefer the things they say they prefer, even when they have far better reasons to prefer their stated preference over their revealed preference.” Now here’s the thing, when you actually ask someone actually amidst buying the dozen donuts if they’d prefer to have the donuts or to lose weight, they’ll tell you “to buy the donuts.” If you remind them of their goal to lose weight, they’ll shrug and say “yeah but that starts tomorrow,” or “oh well,” or “I’ll skip dinner later.” Why? Because it’s not actually the case they are behaving against their preferences. It’s that their preferences are alternating as different rewards approach on different time horizons. “Revealed vs stated preferences” is the laziest frictionless spherical cow explanation of human behavior ever crafted.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

RE 1: Customers have zero influence on this. If you have a pet, you'll need a vet, and if the owner of the owner-operated clinic next to you gets an offer they can't refuse... I can't imagine you'll find some other owner-operated clinic to visit out of spite, where the now-corporate one next to you is open, and perhaps even cheaper. RE 2-5: These are all rounding errors compared to economies of scale the PE-backed companies have. Also, those PE roll-ups target businesses whose owners are at the stage of life when they're just happy to take a big payout and retire. Tax time advantages and spending some time with kids (which is arguably less than salaried employees of the corpo-clinic will have) can't possibly beat being able to not work at all anymore, live comfortably, and have all the time you want for kids.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> I can't imagine you'll find some other owner-operated clinic to visit out of spite No, but I did organise a few patients to grant our vet a loan to open a new facility. (It wound up creating some Michael Scott Paper Company drama between the vet and her former colleagues, which was interesting.)
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  People like you are our last line of defense on the ground. Sadly, I don't think there's enough of such people to hold the line against PEs doing targeted divide-and-conquer on specific market segments, one by one.
QuarterReptile 3y ago
>RE 1: Customers have zero influence on this. If you have a pet, you'll need a vet, and if the owner of the owner-operated clinic next to you gets an offer they can't refuse... I can't imagine you'll find some other owner-operated clinic to visit out of spite, where the now-corporate one next to you is open, and perhaps even cheaper. I have seldom gone to the nearest vet/pediatrician/hospital. Inevitably I try it, it's bad, and then I spend time driving to some place further away that I actually like. And I drive an average of 4000 miles per year; with the median driver traveling some multiple of that each year, I can only assume that most people are way more willing than I to shop around.

Workaccount2 3y ago

People in general do not give a fuck about anything besides price, and behind that, convenience. However, people spend a lot of time talking about how they care about more than just price. The actual manifestation is tiny though.

ethanbond 3y ago
People care about multiple things on different time horizons. There’s nothing contradictory in saying, “I would prefer a world not owned entirely by one PE firm” and “I will generally seek the lowest acceptable prices.”
- PeterisP 3y ago
  The contradiction is not between saying two different things about different time horizons, but saying one thing and doing another. It matters little what you someone says with their words if they say the opposite with their money - if in practice someone is seeking the lowest acceptable prices, then their "revealed preference", to use the technical term, is that they're actually preferring a world where that shop is run by a PE firm, as they're actively helping make that world happen. And sure, their stated preference may well be that a world not owned entirely by one PE firm, but really, who cares about the stated preference that doesn't get reflected in acts in the real world? Those are just empty, misleading lies if the actual choices show the opposite. It's like saying "I prefer a world where I will lose weight" while buying a 12-pack of donuts for lunch.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    That term isn’t “the” technical term. It’s a term from economics to try to explain apparently contradictory behaviors. Gee wiz, what a great explanation! “People just don’t actually prefer the things they say they prefer, even when they have far better reasons to prefer their stated preference over their revealed preference.” Now here’s the thing, when you actually ask someone actually amidst buying the dozen donuts if they’d prefer to have the donuts or to lose weight, they’ll tell you “to buy the donuts.” If you remind them of their goal to lose weight, they’ll shrug and say “yeah but that starts tomorrow,” or “oh well,” or “I’ll skip dinner later.” Why? Because it’s not actually the case they are behaving against their preferences. It’s that their preferences are alternating as different rewards approach on different time horizons. “Revealed vs stated preferences” is the laziest frictionless spherical cow explanation of human behavior ever crafted.