One effect of the truck system was that it seriously curtailed workers' power. So long as they remained indebted at the Tommy shop - "owned my soul to the company stores", as the American mining song has it - greatly limited their freedom of action, their ability to seek to remedy grievances or come out on strike. Furthermore, the system was objectionable because the Tommy shops sold poor quality goods, hence the expression, "tommy rot". Another grumble was that prices were higher the Tommy shops than in ordinary shops. The Midland Mining Commission were told:

"The prices now are 8 pence a lb. for cheese we could get quite as good for 5 pence, bacon 8 pence, it is only 6 pence, butter is 1 shilling instead of 9 pence, tea 5 pence an ounce, I could get the same for 3 pence. The flour and sugar are about the best articles they sell. The sugar is about a halfpenny dearer that in the town."

To emphasise this point on butties, a government mines' inspector complained to a select committee on mining accidents in 1854, "The pits are turned over as soon as they are sunk to the butties".The viewer, the old name for manager, visits once a week or fortnight. The management is entirely in the hands of the butties".

The Morning Chronicle Commission who visited Staffordshire in 1854 was also dismayed commenting:
The change from Northumberland and Durham to those of Staffordshire seems like going back at least half a century in the art of mine engineering.
On the banks of the Tyne and Wear, science the most profound, and practical skill, the most trained and enlightened, are brought to bear upon the excavation of coal.
The pits are worked under constant superintendence of regularly educated viewers, (managers) each of which has a staff of assistants, more or less scientific and with practical skill, to carry his directions into execution.

In the Staffordshire coal district, on the contrary, everything seems to be done by the roughest rule of thumb.
The pits, as regards depth, are mere scratches, compared with those of the North, and, except in the case of a few of the thick seam mines, they are ventilated solely by the agency of the vast number of shafts with which the whole coal field is honeycombed- anything like artificial means for creating a current of air being seldom or never thought of.

The workings in such excavations are, of course, very limited. The labourers could not breathe at any considerable distance from one of the shafts, and the consequence of the whole system is that the coal is worked in the slowest, more dangerous, and least economic fashion.
There were twice as many pits in Staffordshire as in Northumberland and Durham - 584 against 270 according to the mineral statistics for 1856 but they produced less than half the tonnage of coal. Thankfully this influence led to greater output, new techniques and equipment.

In the report of Mr. Tremenheere, Inspector of collieries, which was laid before Parliament at the close of the late session (1859,) the following remarks on the "butty system" appear:
Mr. D.G. Round, of Portland House, Edgebaston, a magistrate of the county and a considerable employer of colliery labour, informed me that twenty years ago he abandoned the butty system, and is so satisfied with the results that he should never think of returning to it. A few other gentlemen also informed me that they had introduced the other plan in some of their pits and that they found it to their advantage.

The conditions of success apparently being first, a very intelligent, sufficiently instructed, and thoroughly trustworthy agent, under whom to place the working of the pits: and secondly, a well selected set of men. It is obvious that those two conditions could not, in the present state of the district, be combined to an extent to be capable of general application. The difficulties have not deterred other gentleman from turning their attention again to the subject. Mr, James Baggnal mentioned to me that he hoped soon to be able to make a trial with the new system in one of his numerous pits, which would be selected with reference to the facilities of working it without the intervention of a contractor.