7 ms·

Seems like the protection laws were enacted with the goal of ensuring access to books in small towns. I've lived much of my life in small towns in the US, and

by ekidd 12y ago

Seems like the protection laws were enacted with the goal of ensuring access to books in small towns. I've lived much of my life in small towns in the US, and honestly, the single best thing about Amazon is that it massively increased my access to books. Small-town bookstores never carried more than a handful of programming books, a couple of short shelves of science fiction, and none of the strange specialist material I buy today (books on purely functional data structures, bilingual French/hieroglyphic texts, and so on—everybody wants something out on the long tail, but the details obviously vary). Right now, my least favorite thing about the French book market is the near-impossibility of buying French-language ebooks from overseas, assuming I want more than Le Petit Prince or a bunch of public domain classics. The only French publishing niche that has this figured out is long-form comics (aka bandes dessinées). There, the publishers banded together to create the massively awesome online distributor Izneo, which sucks up more of my book budget than I'd care to admit, and which allows me to buy from anywhere in the world: http://www.izneo.com/ http://www.izneo.com/ On the other hand, the French tradition of aggressive law-making means that they can actually decide to create a 4-year startup visa, then go ahead and actually do it.

maxerickson 12y ago
I think most of those small town stores would have been happy to order you whatever (of course only if they could find it in a catalog). That's still less convenient than internet shopping though.
- makmanalp 12y ago
  I had a similar experience living in a non-anglophone country ordering english books. Whenever I heard "we can order it" I stopped listening. It always arrived in more than a month, cost tons, got stuck in customs, and wasn't in the catalog anyway.
- merrua 12y ago
  That can depend on how religious the owner/runner of the bookshop is and if your own relgious views matter. Science verses Relgion. One Reglion is the locale area, your own is another etc etc
Brakenshire 12y ago
> I've lived much of my life in small towns in the US, and honestly, the single best thing about Amazon is that it massively increased my access to books. Certainly, but having small local bookshops doesn't preclude also having Amazon.
bsder 12y ago
> Small-town bookstores never carried more than a handful of programming books, a couple of short shelves of science fiction, and none of the strange specialist material I buy today When did you start buying? I lived in a small town (roughly 40,000 people) and in 1981 I could buy Lance A. Leventhal's "6809 Assembly Language Programming" on order in less than a week. The 6502 version was in stock. The problem is that chain bookstores emerged right around this point in the local malls (Waldenbooks, for my local area) and killed the local bookstores. So, in my town, the local bookstore, right off the downtown park, went under in favor of the chain store in the local mall--neither of which now exist. So, now the damage can't be undone without a significant investment by somebody, but the upside profit is limited by whether Amazon is willing to undercut you. Don't get me wrong. I loathe most local businesses in small towns. It used to be that they were slow, but they were reliable. If they said it would be done on date X two weeks out, it would be done on date X or they would start moving heaven and earth. Now, they tend to be slow and unreliable. The last car repair I had to deal with was: "Well, it didn't come in the shipment. It will be another week." "Um, no. Get the part tomorrow." "Not gonna happen." "Actually, yes, the part will be here tomorrow because I'm having it FedEx'd in. And me, my lawyer, your manager, the dealership owner, and GM are going to have a conference call while you are fixing the car you've already had for a week." Those kinds of businesses should go under post haste. Nevertheless, there are some local businesses that get it and do a great job serving the local area. They don't deserve to get wiped out because WalMart, Amazon, etc. can force things that the smaller businesses cannot.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  Actually the number of indy bookstores is on the rise, and has been for several years. They do compete with Amazon, of course, but not nearly as directly as they do with Borders and Barnes & Noble. Borders is gone and B&N is closing stores, which means better times for the indy shops.
  - bsder 12y ago
    And this magically happened just after Amazon had to actually start paying sales tax. Funny how you can actually compete when your biggest competitor loses its 5-8% retail cost advantage.

by ekidd 12y ago

maxerickson 12y ago

I think most of those small town stores would have been happy to order you whatever (of course only if they could find it in a catalog). That's still less convenient than internet shopping though.

makmanalp 12y ago
I had a similar experience living in a non-anglophone country ordering english books. Whenever I heard "we can order it" I stopped listening. It always arrived in more than a month, cost tons, got stuck in customs, and wasn't in the catalog anyway.
merrua 12y ago
That can depend on how religious the owner/runner of the bookshop is and if your own relgious views matter. Science verses Relgion. One Reglion is the locale area, your own is another etc etc

Brakenshire 12y ago

> I've lived much of my life in small towns in the US, and honestly, the single best thing about Amazon is that it massively increased my access to books. Certainly, but having small local bookshops doesn't preclude also having Amazon.

bsder 12y ago

> Small-town bookstores never carried more than a handful of programming books, a couple of short shelves of science fiction, and none of the strange specialist material I buy today When did you start buying? I lived in a small town (roughly 40,000 people) and in 1981 I could buy Lance A. Leventhal's "6809 Assembly Language Programming" on order in less than a week. The 6502 version was in stock. The problem is that chain bookstores emerged right around this point in the local malls (Waldenbooks, for my local area) and killed the local bookstores. So, in my town, the local bookstore, right off the downtown park, went under in favor of the chain store in the local mall--neither of which now exist. So, now the damage can't be undone without a significant investment by somebody, but the upside profit is limited by whether Amazon is willing to undercut you. Don't get me wrong. I loathe most local businesses in small towns. It used to be that they were slow, but they were reliable. If they said it would be done on date X two weeks out, it would be done on date X or they would start moving heaven and earth. Now, they tend to be slow and unreliable. The last car repair I had to deal with was: "Well, it didn't come in the shipment. It will be another week." "Um, no. Get the part tomorrow." "Not gonna happen." "Actually, yes, the part will be here tomorrow because I'm having it FedEx'd in. And me, my lawyer, your manager, the dealership owner, and GM are going to have a conference call while you are fixing the car you've already had for a week." Those kinds of businesses should go under post haste. Nevertheless, there are some local businesses that get it and do a great job serving the local area. They don't deserve to get wiped out because WalMart, Amazon, etc. can force things that the smaller businesses cannot.

Turing_Machine 12y ago
Actually the number of indy bookstores is on the rise, and has been for several years. They do compete with Amazon, of course, but not nearly as directly as they do with Borders and Barnes & Noble. Borders is gone and B&N is closing stores, which means better times for the indy shops.
- bsder 12y ago
  And this magically happened just after Amazon had to actually start paying sales tax. Funny how you can actually compete when your biggest competitor loses its 5-8% retail cost advantage.