THE END CONSUMER:
WHERE THE BURDEN STOPS
(What the expression made me think about)
Recently, I came across the expression "end consumer." It names the person who finally uses a product or service. It is an ordinary business term, but it made me stop and think.
The phrase began to sound like "the end of the line": the place where costs and difficulties arrive after others have passed them along. That is my interpretation, not the definition of the term. But it raises a question worth examining: when a business or institution encounters a problem, how much of that problem eventually becomes the responsibility of the person it is supposed to serve?
A business may respond to higher costs by raising prices. An institution may respond to limited resources by reducing assistance or requiring people to do more for themselves. At the receiving end, people must find more money, do more work, or wait. The difficulty has not necessarily disappeared. It may simply have changed hands.
When the Unresolved Problem becomes Yours:
I recently tried to schedule a mammogram at the hospital in Taos. I called, was transferred to the scheduler, and left a message with my telephone number. More than a week later, I called again and left another message. I still had not received a response.
During a subsequent doctor's visit, I mentioned this to a nurse. She told me that staff were overwhelmed and
scheduling requests were running behind. I cannot establish the cause of that particular backlog from this conversation alone. But I can describe what it required of me: repeated calls, waiting, and uncertainty about when I could obtain an appointment.
Inside an institution, the explanation may concern staffing, funding, or workload. Outside it, the result is a person trying to obtain a service without a clear way forward.
Researchers use the term "administrative burden" to describe costs people encounter when dealing with government programs and procedures. These include finding out what to do, meeting requirements, and coping with stress or a loss of control. Although this research concerns public administration, it offers a useful way to think about the effort required to obtain services. (1)
The Administrative Conference of the United States has examined how agencies can identify and reduce unnecessary burdens on the public. Its work recognizes the importance of understanding people's experiences when evaluating administrative processes. (2)
That leads to a simple question: has an institution reduced the work required to provide a service, or has it left part of that work for someone else to do? With higher prices, fewer choices.
At the supermarket, the burden is more visible because it appears on the receipt.
Economists call the transfer of changes in business costs into prices cost pass-through. It is not automatic or always complete. A business may absorb some increases, and its ability to raise prices depends on market conditions and customers' responses. (3)
Nevertheless, when an increase reaches a household, that household cannot simply raise its income to match. People can buy less, choose cheaper products, postpone purchases, or give something else up. These are ways of managing a burden, not evidence that the burden has vanished.
Giving up an optional purchase is also different from reducing spending on something necessary. Economic analysis identifies customers' ability and willingness to change their purchases as one factor affecting how
costs are passed on. A choice on paper is not necessarily an easy choice in practice. (4)
This is what interests me about the position of the end consumer. Others may have some ability to transfer costs onward. At the household level, those costs become decisions about daily life. Not everyone can absorb the same demands.
A higher price or complicated procedure does not affect everyone equally. Someone with enough money may pay more without changing much else. Someone with time and assistance may manage a difficult application or keep pursuing an unanswered request. Others have far less room to absorb those demands.
Research on "administrative burden" explains how the effort required to understand and comply with procedures can obstruct access to public programs. A program's existence, therefore, does not by itself establish that people can successfully use it. (5)
This does not mean that the person with the greatest need always receives the least. But it raises a serious question: does obtaining help require resources that the people needing help have in limited supply? A service may formally be available while remaining difficult to reach.
How Prices are decided:
Higher operating costs are not the only issue. There are also questions about the tools businesses use to determine prices.
In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission released initial findings from its investigation of surveillance pricing. It described pricing intermediaries with access to detailed consumer information, including location, browsing history, and shopping behavior, that could be used to tailor prices and offers.
These were preliminary findings, not proof that every retailer uses such methods or that every practice is unlawful. (6)
A separate concern is whether pricing software can weaken competition. In its 2024 lawsuit against RealPage, the United States Department of Justice alleged that the company's rental-pricing software used confidential information from competing landlords in ways that harmed competition. (7)
In November 2025, the department announced a proposed settlement requiring changes to information sharing and other practices. Allegations must be distinguished from proven findings, and a proposed settlement is not a judgment establishing every claim. (8)
Using software to set prices is not automatically wrongdoing. But these examples show why higher prices should not automatically be explained as unavoidable responses to higher costs. We also need to ask what information businesses possess, how they use it, and whether customers have meaningful alternatives.
Employees and Service Users are not Enemies
When people ask for an institution to change, they may encounter another objection: restructuring could threaten employees' jobs. That concern deserves attention. People's livelihoods do matter.
An overworked scheduler and a patient unable to obtain an appointment may both be struggling with the same system. Treating their interests as opposing interests can distract from decisions about resources, management, and organization.
The International Labour Organization's work on a just transition, developed principally around environmental and economic change, emphasizes protecting workers while pursuing change. It does not provide a ready-made solution to hospital scheduling, but it offers a useful principle: worker protection can be part of planning reform, rather than simply a reason to reject it. (9)
Working conditions and individual conduct must also be distinguished. Recognizing that employees face pressure does not mean dismissing every complaint about how people are treated. The question is not whether workers or service users matter more. It is how an institution can take responsibility for both.
What this Argument does - and does Not - Claim
These problems are not exclusive to capitalism. Administrative burdens also arise in public institutions; the research discussed here examines interactions between citizens and government. Nor does every price increase indicates exploitation, or every delay establishes neglect. Different failures require different explanations. (10)
My argument is this: an institution can save money or reduce its own workload by shifting costs and work onto the people who depend on it. The burden has not disappeared; someone else is carrying it.
That possibility deserves attention whether the institution is a private business or a public agency. Financial viability matters, but it does not answer every question about whether a service works for its users. We need to count more than the costs appearing in an institution's accounts. We also need to consider the time, effort, and resources required from the people outside it.
Where the Burden stops
What began for me as a question about a business expression became a question about responsibility. Who can pass a difficulty onward? Who has the authority to change an arrangement? And who must accommodate the consequences when nothing changes?
The end consumer is not necessarily powerless. But neither should we assume that the ability to complain, change suppliers, or make another telephone call provides an adequate answer.
A service should be judged not only by whether it exists, but by whether people can obtain and use it. A saving should be examined not only for what it removes from one budget, but for what it demands from someone else.
At the end of the chain, an unresolved institutional problem becomes part of a person's life.
That person, as in you, me, and a whole bunch of other people do belong in the accounting!
Source Notes
1. Donald Moynihan, Pamela Herd, and Hope Harvey, "Administrative Burden: Learning, Psychological, and Compliance Costs in
Citizen-State Interactions," Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 25, no. 1 (2015): 43-69.
https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article-abstract/25/1/43/885957
2. Administrative Conference of the United States, "Identifying and Reducing Burdens in Administrative Processes," research project and final report, December 5, 2023.
https://www.acus.gov/research-projects/identifying-and-reducing-burdens-administrative-processes
3. Office of Fair Trading, Cost Pass-Through: Theory, Measurement and Policy Implications, published June 17, 2014.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-pass-through-theory-measurement-and-policy-implications
4. Office of Fair Trading, Cost Pass-Through: Theory, Measurement and Policy Implications (2014). See note 3.
5. Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey, "Administrative Burden" (2015). See note 1.
6. Federal Trade Commission, "FTC Surveillance Pricing Study Indicates Wide Range of Personal Data Used to Set Individualized Consumer Prices," January 17, 2025. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-surveillance-pricing-study-indi
cates-wide-range-personal-data-used-set-individualized-consumer
7. United States Department of Justice, "Justice Department Sues RealPage for Algorithmic Pricing Scheme that Harms Millions of
American Renters," August 23, 2024.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-realpage-algorithmic-pricing-scheme-harms-millions-american-renters
8. United States Department of Justice, "Justice Department Requires RealPage to End the Sharing of Competitively Sensitive
Information and Other Anticompetitive Practices in Proposed Settlement," November 24, 2025.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-realpage-end-sharing-competitively-sensitive-information-and
9. International Labour Organization, "Just Transition towards Environmentally Sustainable Economies and Societies," topic overview.
https://www.ilo.org/topics-and-sectors/just-transition-towards-environmentally-sustainable-economies-and-societies
10. Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey, "Administrative Burden" (2015). See note 1.
