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>French people just don't get economics. The fact that they do not agree with you does not mean they do not get it. >They're not really good at rational think
by ovi256 19y ago
>French people just don't get economics.
The fact that they do not agree with you does not mean they do not get it.
>They're not really good at rational thinking or logic, either.
This is so presumptuous it makes me puke.
The comments on The Reg's article (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/16/amazon_ignores_french_court/comments/#c_132998 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/16/amazon_ignores_frenc...)
on the subject offer many gems. I have chosen this one, as it explains my feelings pretty well:
"The law they put in place may seem like protectionism (it probably is), but if you go to any French town you don't see their supermarkets or major chains taking over, there are always independently run shops. It's not like over here in the UK where you are pushed to work out which town you are actually in because all high streets look the same these days.
You have to ask yourself what you want, nice looking towns with interesting shops run by locals (as well as a few larger chains) that aren't being driven out of business by aggressive supermarkets and their internet equivalent; or, as in most UK towns: mobile shop, bank, mobile shop, discount shop, Next, shoe shop (schuh, natch), dixons, another bank, tesco metro, boots, Greggs, Pret a Manger, sainsbury's local, etc. etc. And a couple of massive out of town supermarkets.
The French made their decision, we made ours, or at least the supermarkets et al made it for us, I know which I'd rather have."
Oh, by the way, why are books cheaper in France than in the land of the free (and of cutthroat competition) ?
- corentin 19y ago> why are books cheaper in France [...] I buy quite a lot of books, both in France and from other countries through amazon.{com,co.uk,ca} and I see no indication that books are any cheaper in France. The problem is that I don't buy the same kinds of books, so I don't have a good comparison point. I've searched for book price statistics in different countries but I wasn't able to find them. But, since powerful distributors such as Amazon.fr negotiate big discounts with publishers anyway, I'd rather have a piece of the cake than letting Amazon take all the profit for itself. What's interesting is that the main competitor to Amazon.fr, the french company FNAC, offers free shipping as well but, for some reason, wasn't attacked :)
- davidw 19y agoEven if you favor that sort of outcome, there are different ways of accomplishing it. The best ways would be the most direct and the most transparent, or else you end up with things like the farm subsidies, where, in the popular image, it's the small farmers producing local products that everyone wants to help, but the big agribusinesses that reap the benefits. Off the top of my head, an alternate method of promoting small local shops would be tax discounts for family owned stores with only one location. This would help them compete without absurd, ham-handed intervention like the government dictating prices and opening hours.
- curi 19y agoYes, his comment about French people being bad at rational thinking was low quality. But why respond with an insult? That is also a type of low quality comment.