It started when the economy went bad and they had to work harder to get those that will spend in the stores before anyone else. Personally I’d rather pay more then get in a line with some of these shoppers.
Actually it started LONG before the economy went bad. Black Friday used to be about all day sales, then in the late 90s the door busters (limited supply super discount sales) started, since then Black Friday has become more and more about the door busters. The fact is that by the time reasonable people get out of bed Friday morning Black Friday is over. You can head to the stores at noon and it will be a basically normal crowd. The door buster rush is all over in the first 2 hours, which means the stores want to get that rush before everybody else, which causes the hops.