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Re: (TV) Amazon.com



In message <200012112329.SAA21641@eno.brainiac.com>, Joe Hartley
<jh@brainiac.com> writes
>
>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.

It's this 'globalisation' thing which we're all supposed to think is so
wonderful. The internet as some great destroyer of national bounderies
etc. etc. Absolute nonsense, of course, in any real sense. Sure you can
email anyone anywhere in the world but anyone who thinks these things
are not monitored somewhere, somehow, is being naive. Sorry, what's this
got to do with Amazon.com? Not much, except that part of the process is
the idea that you can buy anything, from anywhere, from the comfort of
your own pod. Well, I _like_ shopping, especially shopping for music.
Joe's right - better to shop with someone who _wants_ to be there. I buy
a lot of music from a local second-hand shop; I like going somewhere
where the guy will say, "This came in the other day and I thought it
might be something you would be interested in." If I go to the nearest
chain store, which happens to be Virgin, they don't stock anything that
someone _might_ be interested in. And, usually, the sales people know
fuck all about music, other than how to shove it in a bag and ring it
up.

I've been using the net since long before the first Netscape appeared
and I've never bought a thing online, because I don't have a credit
card. (Try getting a credit card when you don't have an income!). The
internet is a different place when you can't use cash. Dot-com companies
will come and go and it won't make much difference to me or, I suspect,
to most people in the world. People who _love_ music will always end up
in little music shops because they're run by people who love music.
People who don't really like music can always buy a Dire Straits album
from Amazon, while they're still around.

I sympathise with Michael; I knew a guy who ran a small hardware shop.
It was great - you could call in and buy six screws, if you only needed
six. A huge chainstore opened and put him out of business - now you have
to buy two hundred screws, even if you only need six.

This is progress, right? Fuck it.



-------------
Keith Allison
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http://www.marquee.demon.co.uk
"The Wonder - Tom Verlaine, Television & Stuff"
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