Back in the 70's, Sol Price and Jim Sinegal were executives at FedMart, a membership shopping club. I shopped at their San Diego locations. My memory is that it cost $1 for a forever membership to FedMart, (although that may have been at Memco and Gemco stores, and the FedMart membership may have been free.) FedMart had excellent values, and was a great place to shop. (If memory serves, FedMart was later sold and became Target. Don't quote me - I could be wrong about that.) After both men moved on from FedMart, Sol Price opened Price Club, and Jim Sinegal opened Costco. They were friendly competitors who operated in different locations, but had similar business models. Several years later Costco bought Price Club, and for a time the merged storefronts had a combined name of Price-Costco. During that time, Costco determined which Price Club and Costco locations were less profitable, and they closed a number of warehouses. Eventually, the name was changed again, to become the Costco brand it is today. They've never looked back.
My marriage notwithstanding, the last 40 years of my life without Costco would have been very different.
Dave