4 ms·
The people who care about the optics is probably exactly overlapping those that care about independent bookstore day. Which is to say, almost nobody cares.
by voidfunc 1y ago
The people who care about the optics is probably exactly overlapping those that care about independent bookstore day.
Which is to say, almost nobody cares.
- cammikebrown 1y ago[flagged]
- petesergeant 1y agoWhen making my pros and cons list of where to move to a few months ago, "has Amazon" was very high up my list (sorry Tblisi!) and "good independent book stores" was not on the list.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y agoIt’s like Amazon could fire their union-organizing employees on Labor Day and people would just be happy they can still their jelly beans delivered same day.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- GolfPopper 1y ago"It is rather pointless to argue with a man whose paycheck depends upon not knowing the right answer."
- hackernoops 1y ago[flagged]
- tqi 1y agoComplaining about "the optics" is the worst because it basically says "there is no substance to my complaint and yet I will persist to complain"
- Spivak 1y agoYeah, Amazon did a shitty thing. What are you gonna do about it? Nothing. Because the only reason you (an indie bookstore) are angry in the first place is because you have no control or leverage in the first place and you feed on the crumbs that Amazon happens to miss by vacuuming up the rest of the market by being so much better than you at actually being a store— like a entity that holds stuff and distributes it. The value as a 3rd spaces inde bookstores provide to their communities are so crazy disconnected with their revenue model I'm amazed they've lasted this long. Your average inde bookstore isn't actually good (meaning core competency in a market) at anything they try to charge for. They're not good at being a store, they pay retail for logistics, they have no leverage with publishers, if they have food it's usually worse than the restaurant next door, if they have coffee it's usually worse than the starbucks across the street. The advantage of having boutique collection of books you can't get anywhere else evaporated when Amazon has every book in existence. Revenues for rare books evaporated thanks to ebay.
- voidfunc 1y agoAn indie bookstore is really just a crappy captilalist spin on a library. Complaining about Amazon is like pot calling the kettle black.
- Der_Einzige 1y agoYou are 100% correct and the downvoters don't want to admit that there is NOTHING uniquely better about small business/companies vs big business/companies. Often big companies pay better, have better WLB, better safety/compliance, etc. There's a reason Marx calls them the petite-borgeious.
- sethammons 1y ago> there is NOTHING uniquely better about small business/companies vs big business/companies You don't think being an owner close to customers and employees has impact on the customer experience compared to being a cog in a corporate machine driven by metrics providing "customer service"? Economies of scale allows for cheaper consumer prices, but at the cost of the middle class. The rise of Walmart is the death of small businesses and is a symbol the lost opportunity of The American Dream. But we get more affordable stuff on average, so there is that. The continued loss of the middle class is bad for everyone, but you also can't blame consumers because they should find the lowest price.
- pasc1878 1y agoPossibly if like me they read e-books not actual books.