As soon as he started swearing by using the F-word (and no it wasn't a quote from another source) I stopped reading with interest.
To answer simply the fact of bookshops closing, two points spring to mind, globalisation and supply-chain management. Simple, companies either move with the times or will eventually miss out and close shop.
This made me chuckle
Quote:
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The world is moving to embrace the electronic media as its principle mode of expression. The human has opted for the machine, and its ghosts, over the haptic companionship and didactic embodiment of the physical book. And though this development seems inevitable yet I cannot and will not accept it.
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On one hand he is saying he wont accept it, on the other he posted his essay on a webpage which I was able to view free of charge, thus in turn almost killing off books as now I don't need to buy a book to read his essay. He is right though, we are opting for electronic media as a way of moving forward. IMHO much like the way we opted for phone over face-to-face, email over letters, radio over newspaper. Didn't kill any of the old ways off, just introduced new ways for us as humans to communicate.
Waste of time reading it, can someone give me my 5 min of life back?