re: #173 reine.de.tout

There used to be a bookstore here called “Little Professor”. Small bookstore; and I believe it was part of a chain, but they ran a real bookstore. They hired people who actually READ BOOKS. They had an employee who loved detective/thriller type of fiction and knew all the authors. Ditto science-fiction. Ditto non-fiction. Ditto all the genres. You could go in to that store with a book title, or even a PIECE OF A BOOK TITLE, and there would be someone there who could tell you the full title and the author and whether they had it or could order it.

Out of business now - Borders, BooksAMillion, etc. put those sorts of bookstores exist anymore.

It’s happening in my business too, although I’m in a service industry that makes $ on products that I sell.

Now you have big box stores selling electronics at thinner and thinner margins, sometimes staffed by ‘experts’ and sometimes not even that.

All it does is kill the real profession and remove the choice from the consumer.