Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
THere is really no doubt but that Amazon poses an even bigger threat to independents than the chain book stores ever did. The " showroom" effect is real . People browse the independent's bookshelves, accept the help and advice of their staff, then go home to buy from Amazon, even telling the book staff that they are going to do so.
Faced with that, its difficult to figure out how the independents can survive, and merely asserting blithely that "the system works" aint cutting it.
Frankly, I don't know how the independents can survive. Its a difficult problem and it can be argued that the online booksellers are unfairly benefitting from the efforts of independent book sellers to provide a great book browsing experience, therefore something should be done to tilt the playing field their way. What that something should be is the question.
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The benefit online booksellers are receiving isn't particularly unfair, there's price comparison all over the place. I go to Best Buy and browse games and electronics, but then I go home and buy from Steam and Newegg respectively. Is that unfair to Bestbuy, or is that just how the market works in a world with online stores and easy price comparison?
If independent bookstores aren't providing the public with a shopping experience they care about, and aren't offering prices that they want, then what is their benefit? There's no inherent good served by independent bookstores if they're not providing people with a service they want at a price they want to pay. What you describe as a problem is just changing markets due to changing tech; it's a story as old as the Industrial Revolution.
Maybe introducing bizarre and self-serving distortions into the market shouldn't be the go to answer every time the future crushes a particular business model. If we're going to do that, maybe we should prop up mom and pop video rental stores too now that internet video has ruined that. Or how about video arcades now that game consoles have crushed that?
