Re: (TV) Amazon.com

[Maurice Rickard <maurice@mac.com>]

Now that my outgoing smtp server is back up, I belatedly join the 
Amazon thread...

Good points, everybody.  I think with the tech downturn, 
employee/employer relations are changing.  Before recently, people in 
the tech sector were willing to sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice for 
their employers when their stock prices were high enough that options 
could mean something.  But now that so many tech employees' options 
are underwater (exercise price greater than the stock 
price)...they're realizing that there's no guarantee that their 
sacrifices will have any value.  It's no accident that they're trying 
to unionize at Amazon now, as opposed to, say, a year ago.  (I 
dunno--were employees trying to unionize Amazon before now?  If so, 
there goes that theory...)

I was avoiding from Amazon because of the patent issue.  The 
unionization issue hasn't made them look any prettier, and it always 
bugs me to see megastores drive out small businesses, either in a 
neighborhood or on the 'Net.  B&N is indeed another one.

A few years ago, a Barnes & Noble plunked itself down in the middle 
of the pedestrian-friendly shopping district of my neighborhood.  A 
few years before that, two Borders in other parts of the city.  Over 
the next few years, we lost a number of small first-run mom & pop 
bookstores.  There might be...oh, two left in the city as such.

Used bookstores, however, are prospering.  Within a fifteen minute 
walk of my apartment, there's a great one that just opened, as well 
as two great independent coffee shops (and a Star*ucks I've never 
been in).  There's a fine small jazz CD store, and a _massive_ 
exclusively-vinyl shop.  (That's LPs, EPs, singles, and 78s--not 
fetish-vinyl...)  A 10-minute drive will find more independent coffee 
shops, another great CD place, and more used book stores.  Of course, 
this _is_ Pittsburgh, and the rents are lower than elsewhere, but 
people on the margins are making it work, when they've found a niche.

-Maurice

--
Maurice Rickard
http://mauricerickard.com/
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