Is the bookstore dead, or is AMZN just evil?

Discussion in 'Economics' started by nitro, Oct 17, 2011.

Is Amazon going to drive B&N out of business?

  1. Yes.

    58 vote(s)
    56.9%
  2. No

    20 vote(s)
    19.6%
  3. I don't know.

    10 vote(s)
    9.8%
  4. I don't care.

    14 vote(s)
    13.7%
  1. How is delivering what the customer wants, quicker and at a lower price, in any way "evil"? What kind of patronising paternalist nonsense is this? Since when do the profits a few ineffectual businesses supersede in importance the inalienable right of the book-reading public and suppliers like Amazon to engage in consenting free trade with each other?
     
    #41     Oct 18, 2011
  2. spd

    spd

    I think the Kindle screen is very comfortable to read on. Very different than a computer screen.
     
    #42     Oct 18, 2011
  3. Newsystemtotrad,

    are you shill hired by amazon in China or what ?
    Anyway, I 'll tell you why amazon is evil, or just read the last issue of Blooberg Businessweek, it's an eye opener.
    Basically it's becoming a monopoly, they don't just want to offer great value, they also have an objective of crushing the competition.

    If they do that, like people said, no more bookstores. Jobs lost but also a huge loss for society. For ex, I got an interest in finance by hanging out at the bookstore. I read entire books at the bookstore when I was a student. Bookstores make you want to learn more , and they contribute to a better society. Average americans are already "dumb" enough that really the US can't afford that. Unless it wants to wage wars around the world for the next 200 years , then it will need even more uneducated young people -not understanding that they are puppets- to be sent as cannon fodder.

    Also e-readers may be intrinsically bad for society, because they will reduce even more the time people spend reading, leading to an even lower inclination among youth for intellectual pursuits.
    Most of them woudl rather play games than read on such device anyway. People will be surfing libraries , getting bits here and there. When you have 100 books at home , every time you walk by the shelf you may pick one up and reread it. That will be over with e-readers,
    People will have maybe thousands of books but first it won't be passed to the next generation like your grand father's books and Ï bet they will hardly read most of what they have on their e-reader.
     
    #43     Oct 18, 2011
  4. The bigger danger with "e-readers" is the loss of the physical product in the reader's possession. What's to say that one day, somebody in a position of authority deems a certain book against the interests of the "state" and outlaws it. Erased from history.

    Ray Bradbury may have been a futurist when he wrote about a campaign of book burning in Fahrenheit 459, only he never envisioned the day when books would just become obsolete instead.

    Now that public libraries are closing in droves, where will all those books go? Maybe they will just burn them and rationalize the efficiency of the "e-readers" as a worthwhile justification.
     
    #44     Oct 18, 2011
  5. BSAM

    BSAM

    Books...schnooks.
    Forget about books.
    Listen to some Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, Beatles.
    You'll live longer and be way more enlightened.
     
    #45     Oct 18, 2011
  6. Can the answer be 'both'?
     
    #46     Oct 19, 2011
  7. mxjones

    mxjones

    My reading has increased 10-fold since I purchased my Kindle 18 months ago. I know about a dozen people that have Kindles, and every one has increased the amount they read since acquiring a Kindle.
     
    #47     Oct 19, 2011
  8. mxjones

    mxjones

    Spot on. Anyone who refers to the Kindle as "reading on a computer screen" has obviously never read a book on a Kindle.
     
    #48     Oct 19, 2011
  9. My kids were in Tae Kwon Do for 7 years and I spent 3 nights a week at the Border's next door while they learned to kick my butt. I spent way more money than I should have buying books and magazines. I would pick up a magazine sometimes just because I felt guilty grabbing books and reading them while I waited.
    It was a comfortable place to kill an hour or 2 and the employees became friends and knew me by name. When TKD ended I didn't get there much, but I went during the clearance events, it was pretty sad to me.
    So far I've stayed a physical book person, but I do see the benefits to things like Kindle. I still read a physical paper even though I can get our paper online for free. I also subscribe to about 10 magazines or more, mostly free, and I refuse the offers for digital delivery everytime I get them.
     
    #49     Oct 19, 2011