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Originally Posted by barryem
I watched a documentary about the history of Barnes and Noble. Here's a link if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuct6UkKs7o
They mentioned that B&N put a lot of small bookstores out of business long before Amazon came along and that since Amazon, small bookstores are growing in number and thriving.
I think it's also fairly plain that it's Barnes and Noble's poor service and shoddy practices that are hurting them, far more than anything Amazon has done. |
You might be right in some ways or maybe in everway (but I doubt it). B&N putting some bookstores out of business is normal capitalism. For instance, I live in New York and whenever I go to a city such as Manhattan I can find plenty of small bookstores that are not B&N and even when I got to smaller city, in New York, such as Saratoga I found at least two bookstores that are not B&N.
Now as far as poor service and shoddy practices go It seems to me common sense that the reason Amazon Kindle's firmware seems more polished with more features compared to the Nook and various Kobos is because Kobo and B&N can't afford to do that thanks to Amazon. Same goes for customer service. Don't get me wrong my Nook is fine for reading a book but it is a minimalist Zen like experience and a lot of people prefer bells and whistles over minimalist Zen. At least they recently put forth a software upgrade and the firmware seems more stable and less buggy now.
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I can't recall if it was in that documentary or another one I watched about the same time but it was mentioned that malls began closing in large numbers all around the country long before Amazon came along. I doubt that any single factor is to blame for that but my guess is that the major cause would be Walmart.
However it is sad to see one business fade and another take it's place and government should do something about that. They could begin by subsidising horse and buggy makers and penalizing auto makers. Or maybe the first step should be to get rid if the oil and gas and coal companies and promote firewood. Or replace the medical industry with leech growers. 
Things change. It always happens. It always has happened. And when things change someone wins and someone loses. And let's all be glad that's true. If it wasn't we'd still be living in caves.
Barry
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The great American mall caters to a different demographic than Walmart. In malls , nowadays, you see teens comparing what is in stores to how much it costs online using their smartphones and Amazon is definitely one if not the most used one they use to do this.