I think the America that will result from this die-off is a better place. Less suburban sprawl. Less giant eyesore big-box stores that no one enjoys spending time in. More informed purchases because people buy stuff online where it's easier to compare reviews.
But I think there will be significant, very painful collateral damage to people during this transition and I've very sympathetic to people hit by the job losses. Retail is one of the few remaining sectors in small towns. Most other work is becoming increasingly concentrated in big cities or automated away. The days of the US as a patchwork of thriving small towns is ending, but many people still live in those towns. Worse, the ones still there are often there because they are the least able to move — poverty, family commitments, etc.
The US is rapidly turning into a country that has no place for the unskilled, but is also failing to provide the education needed to deal with the millions of unskilled citizens.
I'm also confident that in all of this, it's not the finance industry that's going to be hurt. They'll pull another "too big to fail" maneuver and we taxpayers will bail them out, yet again transferring money to the ultra-rich.
>> More informed purchases because people buy stuff online where it's easier to compare reviews.
I was wondering about this forcing stores to provide more expertise and more flexible inventory. In my town 2 stores in a specific industry went out of business 3 years ago and made a big deal in the papers about how too many people were buying direct from manufacturers instead of visiting their store. I had been to both stores, asked some questions about products, got dumb answers and bad attitude, so I went home and bought everything online. In the last 2 years, 3 new stores in that same industry, 2 of them MASSIVE, have opened up near by (one of them in the same strip mall), and are doing very well. The difference? When you walk into these stores the employees know what they're talking about and they VERY quickly adjust inventory based on current market trends. Now I make most purchases in one of these 3 stores and not online - because I can do research better by talking to them and I can get most things immediately. It's required bigger investment from the owners, but they have thrived where previous stores failed and blamed e-commerce.
Doesn't work with a lot of commodities, but if you're in retail, I think it's clear you need to specialize and add value - and that requires more investment. Don't just be there and expect to keep existing.
The risk with this approach is that you become a showroom for Amazon.
I knew a guy who ran a shoe store and provided a high level of personalized service when selecting the right shoe for your feet, gait, use, etc. Hiring and training employees who were knowledgeable enough to do that, plus having to spend a lot more time with each customer, made it a lot more expensive to sell shoes, and when Amazon and other online retailers started offering shoes for a lot lower prices (because they didn't have to provide the same level of personalized service), he eventually went out of business because people would come into his store and have him help them find the right shoe, then go home and order it for 20% cheaper or whatever.
If you are a consumer, it seems rational to go somewhere and try something on, get expert advice about it, etc, then go purchase it wherever it is least expensive. Why pay 20 or 30% more or whatever for the same thing? Some sort of unwritten social contract (this is usually the reason I don't use local stores as showrooms)? Time sensitivity? As a retailer who goes this route, you kind of have to pin your hopes on those things.
Showrooming is a real problem, and retailers are faced with the decision of trying to add value and hope people end up buying there even though it costs more money, or trying to cut costs in every possible way to compete on price, and I don't know that it's an easy choice all of the time.
> I think the America that will result from this die-off is a better place. Less suburban sprawl.
Why would this lead to less suburban sprawl? Unleashed from any interest in physical commerce, wouldn't suburban sprawl perhaps be even more attractive? There's a lot of assumptions here that these changes will have us reverting to older forms, but I don't see any reason why.
> Less giant eyesore big-box stores that no one enjoys spending time in.
Instead, we'll have giant eyesore big-box empty buildings on oversized empty parking lots littering the land that nobody wants, and few who can afford to tear down and replace.
And what will they replace them with? New houses or apartments or condos few can afford? Maybe office space?
There would be a lot more jobs if we readjusted the way we look at work. Lower full time to 30 hours a week, eliminate "free overtime" salaries, require vacation time, maternal/paternal leave, worker owned co-ops keeping their jobs from getting shipped away, start building publicly funded mental health/ drug rehab clinics everywhere. There are a lot of ways to create more jobs. The fact that the jobs don't exist now doesn't mean we can't make them, we just need to shift our priorities.
But I think there will be significant, very painful collateral damage to people during this transition and I've very sympathetic to people hit by the job losses. Retail is one of the few remaining sectors in small towns. Most other work is becoming increasingly concentrated in big cities or automated away. The days of the US as a patchwork of thriving small towns is ending, but many people still live in those towns. Worse, the ones still there are often there because they are the least able to move — poverty, family commitments, etc.
The US is rapidly turning into a country that has no place for the unskilled, but is also failing to provide the education needed to deal with the millions of unskilled citizens.
I'm also confident that in all of this, it's not the finance industry that's going to be hurt. They'll pull another "too big to fail" maneuver and we taxpayers will bail them out, yet again transferring money to the ultra-rich.