Re: (TV) Amazon.com

[Joe Hartley <jh@brainiac.com>]

Michael <michael@recordsnyc.com> wrote:
> I don't get it with Amazon.com. They've been killing all of the small
> businesses(myself included) to the point of either going out of business of
> filing bankruptcy. This was their plan was it not, to lose or not make money
> the first five years and just steal all the customers that it could from
> every hard working independent American shop and just have one massive one
> line mail order service? 
              < snip >
>         What I want to know is what are they going to do when they've wiped
> out the vast majority of on-line mom & pop shops selling CD's and books.

Part of the problem is that the idiots believe in the new "e-conomy" where
making money isn't important.  Anybody see 60 Minutes last night?  They
had a great peice on how the venture capitalists were telling the companies
they invested in that P&L statements were mundane, that profit wasn't the
point - "branding" was.

Well, now the VC's have discovered that they're running out of money, and
that the companies they told to not bother about turning a profit took
the advice and have run out of money, too.

Now, I'm as big a fan of buying some things on-line as well, but it's
either software that I'm getting directly from the author, gaming materials
that I'm getting directly from the author, or stuff from a real store's
website that I'd have ordered by phone a few years ago.

It's always been important to me to patronize places that were in the
business because they wanted to be there.  I buy most of my music at a
local record store where I know the owner from his reggae show on the
local college station where I had a show.  When I run to the corner store,
I don't go to the Cumberland Farms, but to the store directly across the
streed (called "The Other Store!") where I know if I come up short a buck,
Walter will spot me until tomorrow.

Amazon's going to hit hard times before their 5 years are up.  You can't
burn money at the rate they are and expect to survive.  When they get
to the point that they try to raise their prices, the customers will
turn their backs because Amazon trained them to ignore everything but
price.  When they can't compete, they'll go away, just like Pets.com
and a thousand other dot-coms.

For fun reading, check out http://www.fuckedcompany.com - they chronicle
the deaths of all these idiotic Internet startups that should never have
seen the light of day.

I could go on for hours, but I'll spare you all.  Just make sure you
buy locally, OK?


======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh@brainiac.com
     12 Emma G Lane, Narragansett, RI  02882 - vox 401.782.9042
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa

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