Bye-Bye, Borders
The death of Borders also underlines that for all the benefits of instant real-time information and feedback that the social-networking era has brought, the technology revolution has wrought just as much havoc for the selling of books, home videos, and music as it has for the factories of Flint, Michigan. In September of 2010, Blockbuster Video (valued in 1995 at nearly $10 billion) was reduced to junk-bond status and filed Chapter 11. Former music powerhouses like Sam Goody, The Wherehouse, Blockbuster Music, and Music Plus went the way of 8-track and Betamax tapes a decade ago when Sean Parker invented Napster, along with the births of the MP3 player and the Apple iPod.