Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
In the UK, since the abolition of the "Net Book Agreement" (price fixing) in 1997, independent booksellers have virtually disappeared from the UK. While the agreement was in force, every shopping street has its independent bookshop. Now, they've almost all gone, and we have one chain (Waterstones) which completely dominates the market. I think personally that we're culturally poorer as a result.
|
And yet, with the advent of Amazon, we have cheaper access to a
much wider variety of books than ever before. So no, you don't have a small bookshop down the road, but you have the worlds largest bookshop ready to post you whatever you want. I'd say access to books is higher now than then.