Quote:
Originally Posted by HPOliver
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?
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
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I can vaguely remember when I was a child going along the high street with my mother, buying some bread at the bakers, some meat at the butcher, checking to see what the fishmonger had available, and so on. Then two big supermarkets opened just outside town, and we went to them instead. Nowadays the high street is nothing but charity shops, coffee shops, jewellers and the like.
The reason the independents died is because we (their customers) abandoned them in favour of a more convenient selection of poorer produce at lower prices. It's too early to tell if the changes ebooks will bring are good or bad. Looking at the majority of what is produced and sold nowadays in the UK, I'm not too optimistic - low-rent mass-market swill seems to be the order of the day, but hopefully a few small specialists can make a living in the cracks.