[SellingtheDrama]

It's pretty much a standard corporate attitude to be absolutely focused on maximizing income - and the time periods measured have gone from multi-year to month-to-month (and less).

This means squeeze every penny *now* out of each customer. Instead of building the long-term relationship and taking significantly more over decades (even if you NPV-adjust, this is probably true).

I personally am not a big fan of the corporate attitude - I got trained to think that way in school, but thank god I didn't go that route...I knew it wasn't for me. I still wish I had Al's eloquence for expressing it.