3 ms·
Bookstores themselves are a good example. Borders and Barnes & Noble put all the local bookstores out of business. Then Amazon put them out of business. Now mos
by SoftTalker 8mo ago
Bookstores themselves are a good example. Borders and Barnes & Noble put all the local bookstores out of business. Then Amazon put them out of business. Now most towns don't have a bookstore at all.
- hullo 8mo agoThis is a good example of something that sounds true but is actually not. Private equity put Borders out of business (famously). Barnes & Noble is now private but by all reports (still) doing fine. There are more independent bookstores today (in more towns) than ever before.
- mistrial9 8mo agopeople give books away here in California with "tiny house" library stands. In a major college town, previously full of specialty and trade bookstores, now very empty.
- schlauerfox 8mo agoIt's a community called "Little Free Library" or imitators. they're all over my nighboorhood. https://littlefreelibrary.org/ https://littlefreelibrary.org/
- PaulHoule 8mo agoThese are common in Tompkins County New York but I've seen them in Montreal and Philadelphia
- hedora 8mo agoSome of the ones in the Bay Area were quietly acquired by Barnes & Noble in the last 12 months. I hope that's not a national trend, but I suspect it is. On top of that, Barnes & Noble is closing their larger locations, and replacing them with tiny ones that simply aren't compelling if you're looking for something specific.
- SoftTalker 8mo agoSounds true because (at least in some cases) it is. All the books I've bought in the past 20 years have been online, mostly from Amazon. When I was a kid my town had at least six bookstores that I can remember. Barnes and Noble and Borders came and they were fantastic but caused all the locals to close up within a decade. Then Borders closed and a few years later Barnes and Noble was gone. I go there today and there aren't any bookstores. Nobody thinks a bookstore in a small town is a viable business in the Amazon era, so none have been opened. Big cities I'm sure still have some, they have enough population to support them even if most people don't patronize them.
- rincebrain 8mo agoI'm always surprised when I see B&N stores. I see a fair number of them, scattered around, not even in ultra-populated areas, but the last 3 or 4 times I've stopped in to try and buy things for e.g. holiday gifts, they've had none of the things I was looking for in stock, and they always seem empty.
- JackFr 8mo agoBarnes and Noble put local bookstores out of business by doing a better job at being a bookstore.
- SoftTalker 8mo agoYes, as Walmart put local retailers out of business by doing a better job of being a department store.