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Comment by notatoad | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, Amazon (and increasingly, buying direct from brand's own e-shops) keeps winning my business by being better at every aspect of the sale. I’d like to keep money in my community, but it’s really hard when online has better service, better selection, better pricing, and better flexibility.

I could go downtown to buy a pair of shoes during that store's business hours, get to choose between 3-4 different styles, talk to a salesperson who knows less than the online product listing, then find out that my size isn't in stock and won't be restocked this year. Or I can order online at my convenience, see all the relevant information up front, compare prices across all the selection that exists and across multiple retailers, have the product arrive in a couple days, and pay less money. If local retailers want to exist, they need to find something to compete on.

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> by being better at every aspect of the sale.

> I’d like to keep money in my community, but ...

It sounds to me like Amazon is not better at every aspect, you've identified one aspect right there. They are competing on, "Would you rather live in a cookie cutter franchise strip mall or a mom and pop commercial area?"

I'm willing to accept some inefficiencies and some frustrations if it means I've got a nice neighborhood of mom and pop stores.

if the only value provided by the "nice neighbourhood of mom and pop stores" is the warm fuzzy feelings, that's not enough value for me.

i don't want to live in what's essentially a theme park full of fake stores that only exist because it makes the neighbourhood seem nicer, or where the shopkeepers are basically paid entertainers present for their aesthetic value. if that's the sort of city we're building, let's skip the inefficiency of paying local retailers to provide the service of existing and go right to universal income.

It's not just aesthetic value. Yes, there is aesthetic value but also there is the value of "People can afford to live and work here." A community that contains some shop owners, some office workers, some landscapers, etc. is a better community in my eyes.

i agree with you that a community where people can afford to live and work is good, but the work needs to actually be productive. if a retail store's only value is unrelated to their retail business, then i think it's fair to call them only aesthetic.

paying people to work in shops that are worse in every way than the alternative except for being local is not productive. no real value is being created. it's a make-work scheme, and paying those workers to not work would be more efficient.

It is productive. My local bike shop sells me bike parts I need, just not as conveniently or efficiently as Amazon.

The ruthless pursuit of efficiency as it's own goal is a trap. Squeezing out every societal optimization is a very engineering centric mindset. There are many, many times where the most efficient solution to a problem isn't the "best" one, and we need to collectively get better at recognizing when that's the case.

That’s the odd thing though: Amazon has several disadvantages compared to your local bike shop (not being local, not being able to see your bike, not having a human who can talk to you, and not being able to hand you the parts right now). That your local bike shop, despite starting with these significant advantages, manages to be less convenient and efficient for you is interesting and unexpected (and does not bode well for them and others like them).

I chose bike shop arbitrarily. I could have said hardware store, cake supply store, game store, toy store, etc.

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