tired: in an Amazon world, independent retail is doomed
wired: independent retail was doomed before Amazon with the rise of mall outlet chains and \u201cbig box\u201d stores, both Wal-Mart and \u201ccategory killers\u201d with nationally optimized supply chains; Amazon\u2019s original debut as a bookseller was in a sector that Barnes & Noble and Borders had already transformed
galaxy brain: independent retail was already under threat from national operations like F.W. Woolworth, A&P, and Sears Roebuck at the turn of the century and in response the politically influential class of local businessmen erected an extensive regulatory apparatus \u2013 restrictions on the timing, amount, and advertising of sales and discounts; a heavily regulated shipping sector; vigorous antitrust to prevent suppliers from decisively dominating any sector; requirements for branch offices as a condition of doing business in the state; protections for an intermediary layer of wholesalers and distributors between producers and retailers; all of which mitigated the advantages of size and committed large businesses to supporting a class of local business-types throughout the areas they served rather than concentrating wealth and power in a headquarters city. Much of the heralded \u201cderegulation\u201d and \u201cconsumer movement\u201d of the 1970s-80s consisted of dismantling this apparatus in the name of efficiency, lowered consumer prices being one way to increase purchasing power against a backdrop of stagflation.
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