Sites are like, so yesterday

Supermarkets set me thinking about the internet, which surprised me too. The internet seems to me to be slowly becoming less and less about sites (I'm blogging this from my phone) and more about applications, open source, linking, embedding, readers and so on, which are both indicative of and constitutive of a postmodern / late modern way of being identifiable by stitching things together, customisation, optimising, picking and choosing to one's own ends. This is double edged, for although it is undoubtedly an aid to individual agency and a kind of 'playfulness', it can lead to uncertainty, doubt and an absence of a 'knowable' object.

So what does this have to do with Supermarkets?

Brands. Increasingly brand owners set their brands up as providers of structure that both enable and make sense of 'do it yourself' identity, society and culture, viz Google and err, Google. So perhaps it isn't much of a leap to say that I'm not surprised at people becoming more likely to shop around at different supermarkets. Supermarkets are so successful partly because they (appear) to provide so much choice and so many possibilities for identity and ways to be. But, when one of the choices - in this case low prices for particular products - is not on offer at one supermarket but is at another, and when that choice is in demand, then people flit.