Ups, why not? I thought You're the fan of this brave new world and all it's perks. *veg*And US was the first out with the idea of paying less in grocery stores when you have a smartphone. I try to NOT participate, even as grocers/advertisers keep sweetening the deal.
No, just see the whole picture and where it leads to.Groceries and clothes are not considered a utility expense in the US.
Those two are separate things. Don't conflate them.
Whether the governemt regulates prices for utilities is a different matter, that concerns the question about free-market or not (or how much of it), that's something for economists to discuss, and it's an old discussions.
Frank Herbert had the idea that corporations might measure the utilisation of the severage(*) in order to figure out how many people go for a piss during the television ads, i.e. the efficiency of these ads. That was in times when mass media was mainly TV, and with a limited number of programs, and it was kind of a horror idea. Nowadays, with so much better technology, we're quite there. And I still don't like it.
(*) Santaroga Barrier