As for disposing of negatives, what a bunch of idiots. Evidently they don't understand that negatives aren't like the husk of a coconut, they're an important part of film photography and can be kept for decades as an archive. Want more prints/bigger prints? Just get the folder out and find the frames.
I do not share this view. I assume it is not a matter of ignorance but of knowledge about logistics and the wish of the typical client. A client who is pleased with a CD, and would lose or scratch the negatives in some shoeboxes anyhow.
One shoebox can hold a lifetime's negatives for an average person. Doesn't take much space in the closet. Even my grandmother, long since gone, knew the negatives were important. One of my cousins recently found some very old family negatives in our recently departed Uncle's closet.
Thank God we didn't have Walmart messing things up 75 years ago.
Is it Walmart to blame who doe not longer offer a certain service/refuse a necessity (depending on viewpoint)?
Or are to blame the customers who are not bothered with those negatives and neither look for another lab or protest at Walmart?
Specially in the US where the concept of self-responsibility seems so well-founded, I would expect the customers to care for their photographic memories.