4 ms·
I listen to a lot of retrogaming and retrocomputing podcasts, ANTIC and Retronauts are my favorites. It turns out ANTIC interviews quite a few people from the
by bane 5y ago
I listen to a lot of retrogaming and retrocomputing podcasts, ANTIC and Retronauts are my favorites.
It turns out ANTIC interviews quite a few people from the old computer magazine and book industry, and retronauts is mostly made up of struggling video game journalists who cycle between the same magazines and being jobless or freelance. A few of them, especially the more senior folks basically have thrown in the towel and now work for other companies entirely within the video games industry.
What's really interesting about the ANTIC interviews is how close those folks were to the thing that basically displaced them (computers and ubiquitous networking), and yet none of them seems to have predicted it happening. To them the publishing and periodical industries had always been there and always will be. Their own employer going out of business was more due to local market forces affecting them or mergers between companies.
For the record, it didn't occur to me either. In the mid 90s I was sitting next to an incoming T-1 line at a startup ISP sending off physical envelopes with job applications to gaming and computer magazines I enjoyed hoping to become a journalist myself. One of the magazines that did reply (by mail btw) went out of business itself about 6 years later.
- refulgentis 5y agoSomeone close to me has worked at Macy's their entire career, through college, after college, through grad school, after grad school. Nearly 15 years now. Much as you mentioned these folks not seeing the closure as a result of the Internet, but rather local competition dynamics, no matter how many stores close or odd situations happen, they believe the precise details of each narrative are what matter (i.e. the alcoholic manager) rather than the continual pattern of the store they're working at closing, every 2-3 years like clockwork
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoLots of fashion stores with 50+ years of history have gone bankrupt. I guess we'll see if the likes of Primark or Zalando will still be around in 2050.
- crocsarecool 5y agoI guess it’s hard to see when you go to work every day. It’s there. It’s physical. You’re working.
- refulgentis 5y agoExactly, secular trends are hard to spot when you know the details. Tech people look at the alternate present where your revenue is 30% better without the internet, but that's "imaginary" in some sense, it really was the manager who put the store under