Costco is a weird retail cult

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I know that a lot of people like Costco but I think that they are way overrated, to be nice about it. I have gone into the store a few times and it seems like the whole place is some creepy cult. My family buys a lot from the place but thankfully there are other stores around here to buy stuff from and quite honestly I think Costco is a ripoff.

First, I don't see how the prices are always cheaper at Costco than elsewhere. I ran the numbers for toilet paper, for example (one of Costco's biggest sellers according to them) and comparing the same kinds of paper I found that Costco was about $0.10 - $0.30 higher per roll than other stores. I have done the same comparison with quite a few other items in the store and found that either Costco was the same as its competitors or maybe a little less. Many items were actually more than buying at the grocery store, in fact. Granted, produce can be cheaper and anyone who buys meat could get a better deal here. Basically if someone lives on a meat and salad diet then Costco's food is cheaper.

I've also had quite a few issues with Costco's quality overall. I've had seafood (scallops, fish) with sand and grit in them even though the packaging advertised them as cleaned (never had this issue with seafood bought at the grocery store), I've had chicken products with gristle and cartilage in them (I don't eat meat much but again, I've rarely had this issue with other retailers), Stove Top stuffing with a curry taste (and I don't like curry and never had this issue elsewhere), weird tasting candy and sweets, and so on. I've eaten less food from Costco and have had more food quality issues with this place than other retailers. As for other products, I've seen clothing that was 2 - 6 sizes smaller than it was labeled as, batteries that don't hold a charge for long (these are not rechargables but I've had longer battery lives elsewhere), furniture that is awkwardly designed and manufactured, kitchen knives that couldn't cut (the parents bought some santoku knives that perform worse than dollar store knives), and more. We have a couple of weather clock radio things that display the outside temp as 20 degrees when its more like 0, go figure. Unreal.

If that weren't bad enough, take a good look at the people who shop there. Talk about slow and dumb! There are people who stand in the middle of the aisle and block everyone else, people who move at a snails pace, people who don't understand that two individuals cannot occupy the same space on the surface of the earth, people who bring their weird kids into the store and act like it's a daycare; It's like dealing with a bunch of prisoners. The employees aren't much better; a lot of them have this weird robot demeanor about them and the place has a weird military/regimented feel to itself. It's almost like people here are programmed and corralled into thinking and feeling a certain way, just like a creepy cult. Oh, and the whole checking receipts at the front door (and not having any bags for your items to boot) comes across as some power trip dreamed up by Issaquah. Thankfully at least the store is physically clean, usually.

The kicker to all of this: the annual membership fee. I'll be honest here, that's not the worst problem but it's sort of like throwing dirt in a person's face. We have to pay to shop among the Costco crazies?

Yes, Sams Club and the other warehouse clubs have many of the same problems and I don't care for them as well. I could go on and on about this but I want to be as brief as I can. For some reason though people just love Costco and the media fawns over them as well. I don't know if it's a West Coast thing but the place comes across as a creepy cult and I guess I just don't see the hype.

Luckily, you have no obligation to shop there.
We don't have places like Costco where I live, so I couldn't shop there if I wanted to anyway.