A wacky idea: I'd like to see some product lines and perhaps some product types protected by law - so that they can only be sold at physical stores and not online. The idea is to get a minimal subset of products so that physical stores can stay in business. Ideally, these would be products where there is a benefit to buying them in-person (perhaps product expertise, fitting, visual considerations, or shipping.)
I understand that France still has bookstores because they set minimum pricing on ebooks. Perhaps a more "fine grained" approach might work to keep some US business alive. (Though I would also require community ownership and community management - we have enough billionaires trying to maximize profit at our expense.)
Just so I'm clear, you're saying that there should be a law where some goods cannot be sold online and have to be sold in stores only. And the purpose of this is to prop brick and mortar businesses up so they can stay in business?
Yes. There are some products that are better purchased in person.
Looking at this from a strictly analytic perspective, we could build distributions for each characteristic of a particular product. We would expect that some products would benefit the seller or distributor by being sold in person, and some products would benefit the buyer by being sold in person. There could be a case argued that society would be better served by both keeping some physical stores around and protecting some products so that they can be sold in those stores. It seems to me that philosophical arguments tend to ignore that different products have different characteristics - and those characteristics impact our society.
If buying those products in person really provides more utility than buying them through the internet, sure, those stores will stick around. Most things aren't that way, however, and it is only going to get worse as one and same-day delivery becomes more widespread. Particularly since brick-and-mortar stores have cut inventory to the bone, so you never know if they'll actually have what you need at any time.
I'm down to only going in a store for perishable groceries and the occasional hardware store purchase when I run out of something in the middle of a project. Everything (and I'm not kidding) else, it's more efficient and less aggravating to grab on Amazon and use Prime two-day shipping. If VR finally becomes a real thing, in 5-10 years appliance and furniture showroom stores might well be obsolete.
It's not true that better utility will cause the stores to stick around. Some utility will be external to the buyer or seller (for our society, for example), and some utility will possibly come with dis-utility to, for example, a distribution chain. But, from a strictly analytical perspective, there might be benefits worth preserving. Also there are studies showing that utility is often invisible to the buyer (consider sophisticated electronics with characteristics such as power saving or such as high environmental costs). To take a classic example, medical care allows no practical way for the customer to judge quality or to price compare - that is an extreme example, but many products have such aspects. The common justification that "markets work" represents a philosophical position, not one backed up by experience in real-world markets.
I understand that France still has bookstores because they set minimum pricing on ebooks. Perhaps a more "fine grained" approach might work to keep some US business alive. (Though I would also require community ownership and community management - we have enough billionaires trying to maximize profit at our expense.)