"rbowman" wrote in message
On 10/10/2015 06:02 PM, Robert Green wrote:

stuff snipped

I still hit the library regularly to pick up mind rot but I haven't done
any serious researching there in years unless I was bumming the wifi.

I take that back. Last week I was looking for a book by Celine. I was
having a senior moment and couldn't come up with a first name. A search
of the catalog turned up about 40 pages of Celine Dion who I was pretty
sure wasn't who I was looking for. So I wandered over to the reference
section and eventually found an encyclopedia of literature that soon
informed me I was looking for Louis-Ferdinand, the pen name of Louis
Destouches. Back to the catalog search. No Louis-Ferdinand in the entire
system so I bought the damn thing from Amazon. They only had the one I
wanted in paperback, not Kindle, so I had to wait two days for it.

Reminds me of a few years ago if you ran a search for "soprano" you'd get
Tony and not any singers.

It's not only looking things up, it's getting things. I try to buy local
but this town isn't a huge market and the merchants can't afford to have
every odd gadget in stock.

Even in places with lots of brick and mortar stores AND things in stock I
still prefer Amazon for lots of reasons. I've never had anyone rear-end me
on the way to the mailbox to pick up a package from Amazon but it did happen
in the Home Depot parking lot. Let UPS take the risk.

I've even had people tell me 'No we don't
have so and so but we can order it. Or you probably can use your
computer just as well as we can.'

Kinda sad, in a way. They know their days are probably numbered. What I
have found is that local merchants see slowing sales and then reduce the
inventory they are holding. That's a classic death spiral.

In one case, I was trying to buy a car
radio for a new model. They couldn't come up with a dash kit even after
I gave them the part number. Back to Amazon, and I had the dash kit and
radio in a couple of days. Then there was the web site with photos and
detailed instructions on how to rip apart a Toyota dash to install the
radio.

I always look at the ratings and read them in detail (lots of idiots who
give it 5 stars and then write "I haven't actually used the product yet."
sigh

However, I see some bad consequences for all this in the not-to-distant
future. Who could really be a competitor to Amazon? Wal-mart is faced with
the dilemma of their on-line business cannibalizing their retail stores so
they treat on-line sales as a poor relation. Other big general-item
merchants have died like flies. What happens when only Amazon remains?

Yet those concerns haven't stopped me from running up quite a tab there.
(-: Now they offer same-day delivery on many items. What's not to like?

--
Bobby G.