OK - I'll bite.
Here's my view.
Ooop North above you in Brum in the wildest depths of Lancashire and Yorkshire where the luddite window cleaners like "Stan the Man" (of this august forum - he'll be along in a mo' when he's pulled the spark plug lead off of his panther sidecar outfit
) live you still get patches.
These guys typically charge about £5 a house, run up and down ladders in contravention of Health and Safety guidelines, drag their knuckles and shout "Gerroff my patch!" at those who have the temerity to venture into "their area". Some get threatening and very rarely will physically assault another window cleaner or put a brick through his windscreen and let down his tyres.
Thankfully, natural selection is weeding these out and they go back to their doley ways and find some other poor geezer to intimidate.
Some customers - like battered wives - help perpetuate the "Patch" system by "sticking" to their window cleaner even tho' he is surly, unreliable and just rearranges the dirt instead of removing it from the windows.
Darn Sarf
it's different - we're a bunch of pansies with shiny new vans and a bogbrush on a stick (otherwise known as waterfed poles) - we are so weedy that we are scared of ladders and boast about stupidly high earnings while making our customers (heretoafter referred to as custies) windows all spotty and smeary because we think that waterfed poles are magic wands.
If Johnny-come-lately, the new window cleaner (heretoafter referred to as a windie) turns up next to one of our custies we say "Here, let me show you how to do it" and we offer help and obsequiously grovel and say "after you" - "no, after you" etc - because we are fools who will soon be back to our computing jobs when the recession is over.
Hope that helps.