Quote:
Originally Posted by Laridae
Let me try to summarize the situation as I see it:
Vendors invest in bricks-and-mortar stores and employ sales staff in the hopes of making a sale. If a shopper visits the store and takes advantage of these services he then has a moral obligation to support the store. It's not written down anywhere; let your conscience be your guide.
If he doesn't see anything he likes and doesn't buy anything then that's fine; c'est la vie. But, if having thus determined what he wants he then deliberately leaves the store and buys it online because it's cheaper then that's just not right. He's taken advantage of the vendor - essentially gotten something for nothing. If everyone did that there would be no stores.
The reason why this differs from traditional "comparison shopping" is the vast difference in the cost of operating a B&M store vs. an online store. This is something new, as a result of digital technology, and that's why traditional retail models are being undermined.
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Your argument seems to be that the moral value of browsing and not buying comes from the fact that if he browses and he wants the book, he has a moral obligation to buy. That's just circular - he's doing a wrong thing because the thing he is doing is wrong. Even the suggestion that if everyone did it then there would be no book stores does not identify wherein the moral character of browsing without buying lies. What makes it a moral question?