Another excellent post, Lear. Thank you for sharing your ideas with this board.
I appreciate your historical analysis, as well as your links to additional complementary info.

One factor that I didnt see you mention, and one that Ive been thinking about with regard to DG - is population growth / decline in rural and non-metro regions of the US, where I assume DG does most of its business. At least those are the areas we keep hearing about in the context of - lots of small town where there is just a gas station and a DG FD or DLTR.

First of all - I'd love to know the distribution of DG stores by urban / rural or finer distinctions like metro, metro adjacent, rural..
ers.usda.gov - Rural urban continuum codes

Here are a couple of things I was able to find that are relevant to this discussion; if folks have better sources please do share.

Here is a link to a website providing info - supposedly from the World Bank but perhaps from US census population estimator - suggesting small declines in rural population over the last few years
macrotrends.net - Rural population

Here is another source suggesting recent growth in non-metro areas - post covid...but whether this has or will reverse is a ?
carsey.unh.edu - Recent data suggest rural america is growing again