Comment by Arizhel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Arizhel | Hacker News Reader

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Yeah, malls really don't cater to teenage boys any more, and technology has changed greatly. So all the stores left are ones where online shopping has a much harder time competing, and that's clothing, because you can't try on clothes that you buy online (you can buy them and return them, but that means paying for return shipping costs, or if the retailer covers that for you, it still means having to wait a lot for replacement stuff, or having to shell out a lot up-front to buy everything you want to try on).

And of course, since modern men's clothing is so horribly dull and men just wear a t-shirt and jeans usually, that means the large majority of square footage in the mall is dedicated to women's clothing.

Back to those stores that aren't at the mall: 1. Bookstores are still at the mall, but only some malls. It's called "Barnes & Noble". Lots of malls have them. But you don't see the small ones like Waldenbooks any more; they're all gone. People aren't reading books as much any more, and a lot of people who do buy e-books. 2. Not many people buy physical music any more. If they do, they get it on Amazon. Otherwise, everything is either MP3/AAC downloads or streaming music services. 3. No one buys software in a box any more; you just get it online. And a lot of application software has gone by the wayside, to be replaced with SaaS, web apps, etc.

> Bookstores are still at the mall, but only some malls. It's called "Barnes & Noble". Lots of malls have them. But you don't see the small ones like Waldenbooks any more; they're all gone.

I've noticed that Barnes & Noble is downsizing some of their mall stores. There used to be a nice 2-level one with tons of selection at an upscale mall near me. They closed it and replaced it with one with maybe 1/3 of the floor-space in a different location.

The fall of reading books has probably not been as dramatic as many people think: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/19/slightly-few.... I know modern society gets a lot of grief because everyone on the train and bus has their nose buried in their phones, but from what I see is there are still a lot of people reading print books, and even flipping through broadsheets.

According to your link, since 2011 1 in 20 people has stopped reading altogether. That seems fairly dramatic to me.

Yeah, that's why I said "not as many"... I think there's a reduction, but it's not anywhere near a collapse. But more importantly, between Amazon, other online sellers (like Powell's), and e-books, this has lead to a big consolidation in brick-and-mortar bookstores, so there's only one national chain left (Barnes & Noble), plus some notable ones in certain localities (such as Strand in NYC, Powell's in Portland, etc.).

But it's not like music where no one buys music at a local record store any more, except perhaps for some secondhand CD shops that may have survived near colleges. Or worse, software, where they just don't sell it in boxes any more AFAICT and everything is sold online.

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