I considered the online book dealers a positive development from the beginning. The mail-order and internet vendors are, in some ways, a throwback to the days of the Sears Roebuck catalog, when the alternative to local mom and pop retailers wasn't the "big box store," but rather a network of distribution centers that dealt directly with the customer. The main competitor of Amazon.com, etc., is not the locally-owned bookstore downtown, or the used bookseller who has all the old and unusual stuff you can't find anywhere else. Rather, it's B&N, Borders, and their ilk. So if nothing else, the online folks make communities a lot more human-friendly.
>From: Bryan Caplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >The same goes for mail order vs. brick-and-mortar stores. The Internet >crash makes it seem like mail order can't afford to discount 40% below >brick-and-mortar. But why not? It sure seems like a website must be >vastly cheaper to run than a physical store, especially when one website >can do the work of thousands of local stores. >-- > Prof. Bryan Caplan > Department of Economics George Mason University > http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > "He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one > would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not > necessary that anyone but himself should understand it." > Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks* _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
