Perhaps the rest of Europe is better. As a UK resident I hope they absolutely crush the high street "experience" as it is in many large UK towns - which I find

Perhaps the rest of Europe is better. As a UK resident I hope they absolutely crush the high street "experience" as it is in many large UK towns - which I find suffers from the exactly the same triumph of cost cutting over customer service that you're citing as a factor in the US. I'd rather see the high streets grassed over and turned into city centre parks. Or slabbed over and turned into parking, in some places. I would buy everything online and have it delivered given the chance. I already buy most clothes, shoes, electronics, media, computer hardware, groceries, and a lot of it comes from Amazon already.