Big city left with no bookstore
It’s all well and good that there are places like Amazon where one can buy books at great discounts. But nothing online can really replace the experience of visiting an actual bookstore. This is a very disturbing trend. I hope that it is just the fact that the national chains are too poorly structured to be profitable, and that a smaller regional chain and/or “Mom & Pop” type business can enter into markets like this one.
I think also that those of us who spend most our time online may forget that there is a large number of people who don’t. A whole section of our population which does not shop online for one reason or another, not always voluntarily. Local stores being shutdown due to their inability to compete with online stores is going to widen the rift separating those who can do these things all online, and those who cannot. The last thing our society needs is more rifts.
(Via CNN.com.)
