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07-04-2013, 03:11 PM | #31 | |
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07-04-2013, 03:35 PM | #32 |
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Given the choice, I'll wager Wal-Mart would prefer a world without Amazon.
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07-04-2013, 03:36 PM | #33 |
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Neither Wal-Mart nor Home Depot closed their doors when the power went out. They know how to do business without the internet.
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07-04-2013, 04:36 PM | #34 |
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For that specific example: true. On the other hand, Amazon is a glorified mail-order company. Mail order companies existed before the internet in multiple forms, from the mail-order catalogue to the home shopping channel. Like Amazon, they were typically cheaper than B&M stores because they didn't have the same overhead. In their heydays, they were generally despised by B&M stores because this lower overhead allowed mail-order companies to undercut retail outlets.
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07-04-2013, 04:53 PM | #35 | |
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07-04-2013, 05:55 PM | #36 |
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Wow. This is a silly discussion to begin with, but is anyone actually, honestly contending that Wal-Mart would not be more successful absent the internet? Do people actually believe Bezos would have spawned a mail order book business absent the internet? That Sears plus shipping trumps Wal-Mart B&M?
Wal-Mart, Sears, and Home Depot survived the internet then learned how to leverage it. Border Books, Circuit City, CompUSA, and many others did not learn to adapt and perished. The world changed with the rise of the internet, but it wasn't a boon for all. |
07-04-2013, 09:25 PM | #37 | |
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07-05-2013, 09:36 AM | #38 |
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But that would be off topic
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07-05-2013, 03:23 PM | #39 |
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Just saying that the Internet is just like other innovations that came along in past generations. The old things (ways of doing things) are either sidelined or go extinct as new technology replaces them. The internet is just the newest big change of that sort. Some are bound to be disgruntled as they don't want to change with the times, but that doesn't mean that time stands still. Once upon a time companies used telegrams or face to face meetings to conduct business, then the telephone was invented pushing out the telegraph, now the internet makes video conferencing possible. Time and time again history has shown that what doesn't change with the times withers. The internet is here to stay (at least til someone finds a better way of doing something similar.)
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07-05-2013, 06:11 PM | #40 |
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I agree with you. We cannot stop innovation. It's OK to wonder if and this guy was simply wondering if the arrival of the internet was a good thing. Some people thought he was nuts to wonder that. I disagree.
I love anecdotes. So here is one. When I was in high school, in my biology class, we saw a film about a bunch of things. The thing that stuck in my mind was the image of a little boy in Africa who was sitting on a rock. There was a fly walking over his face and he did not even swat it away. At fourteen years old, I decided that the kind of people who left Africa to do everything were the kind of people who would at least shoo a fly on their face and that this kid was certainly the progeny of people who would not bother to invent shoes and jackets and discover the rest of the world. Now I am 52. I have been schooled and commute to work every day. I pay college tuition and health insurance and taxes. Sometimes I wish my ancestors would not have been the kind of people who would shoo a fly off their face. Sometimes, I sit in my back yard with a beer and watch a fly walk across my thigh. All these things we have done are amazing, but I'm not sure I wouldn't be just as happy to sit on a rock and watch the world go by. I guess things skip a generation sometimes... |
07-05-2013, 06:47 PM | #41 | |
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Each major wave of invention raised the number of people the planet could support and the both the average and peak standard of living of those ever-increasing numbers. As someone who lives in one of the more developed societies, with access to all the products of 10,000 years of snowballing engineering, I'm happy to put up with the occasional bit of technological whiplash as innovation marches merrily on, ignoring luddites and other naysayers. Last edited by fjtorres; 07-05-2013 at 06:49 PM. |
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07-05-2013, 08:16 PM | #42 | |
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Am I always successful. Nah. I love my computers far too much for my own good. Yet I think I do better than most. I can live a fairly simple lifestyle, and a relaxed one at that, because I don't feel a compulsion to need everything that humanity has created. |
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07-05-2013, 10:53 PM | #43 |
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Ah, but it is just those tech. innovations that enable you to be able to sit on a rock and watch the world go by if you wish. Without them we (if we were alive at all) would be forced to be constantly on the move to find our next meal etc. I know I probably wouldn't have made it out of infancy much less past age 28 if it weren't for tech. innovation. I was a premee when born and suffered from seizures among other problems and if I'd survived that I'd have gone before age 29 due to type 1 diabetes without yet another medical tech. innovation.
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07-05-2013, 10:58 PM | #44 | |
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07-06-2013, 04:54 AM | #45 | |
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