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HPOliver · 11-27-2010, 02:09 PM

Do you recall the days of neighborhood grocery stores, independent banks, mom and pop hardware shops, and small retailers of almost everything under the sun? For those of us who dwell in the major metropolitan areas of this country, those were far better days.

True, things were less convenient back then and I suppose we paid more for the items we purchased, but there were some significant benefits also, not the least of which being that you, as a customer, represented a larger percentage of a store’s customer base—say 0.1% as opposed to 0.0001%. In other words, what you thought and bought mattered a whole lot more to the business owner.

It is my fervent hope that e-publishing represents, at least to some small degree, a return to the days of independent businesspersons who were willing to share the pie with their competitors, rather than basing every decision on eliminating those competitors. If that’s what’s happening, it might well mean the end of an era when agents and the will of the masses determined what we read.

H.P.

11-27-2010, 02:09 PM	#24
HPOliver Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Northern California Device: nook	A return to yesteryear? Do you recall the days of neighborhood grocery stores, independent banks, mom and pop hardware shops, and small retailers of almost everything under the sun? For those of us who dwell in the major metropolitan areas of this country, those were far better days. True, things were less convenient back then and I suppose we paid more for the items we purchased, but there were some significant benefits also, not the least of which being that you, as a customer, represented a larger percentage of a store’s customer base—say 0.1% as opposed to 0.0001%. In other words, what you thought and bought mattered a whole lot more to the business owner. It is my fervent hope that e-publishing represents, at least to some small degree, a return to the days of independent businesspersons who were willing to share the pie with their competitors, rather than basing every decision on eliminating those competitors. If that’s what’s happening, it might well mean the end of an era when agents and the will of the masses determined what we read. H.P.