Small businesses are important for a whole host of intangible reasons.

They provide dignified employment (as opposed to invisible work in a warehouse), they encourage entrepreneurship, they increase the tax base of a locality (by ensuring money stays within a local economy), and they contribute to local culture, community and character.

Amazon killing small businesses has sucked even more of the life force out of small towns, and that’s sad because said towns were already shellacked by the death of manufacturing.

It’s hard to argue with Amazon’s excellent customer experience, but the externalities involved are nontrivial and IMO outweigh the benefits.