Disgusted with the internet

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Nah, I enjoy browsing shops, too. Besides the gym and skating most days it's the only way I get out of my house. It makes me sort of sad to see some go (we have almost no book stores anymore, and people would just go to bookstores, preview books and buy coffee, and then go buy them on Amazon.) But uh, that's how free market economy works. Model Ts sure were neat cars, but modern cars displaced Model Ts, and Model T's displaced horse drawn carriages, etc. It's just life.

The other thing too is, people are broke. People have a lot less money now due to the "new economy" and our more or less economic collapse in the works. Before, people could afford to be less efficient and buy things in person. But, if something online costs, say, 30% less, why not get it online? I guess you could say customer service and whatever and have a point, but there's really no difference. If you go to some shady corner store in a dark alley and buy some electronic, they probably won't let you return it, whereas if you go to a department store, they will. There's reputable shops online, and less reputable ones.

As much as I like going to in person stores, if I can't get a comparable deal to the internet, ie, pay around what the item costs shipped online, I don't buy usually. I don't have money. Sometimes local stores just simply have zero selection, too. For example, figure skates. There's very few used boots in mens sizes at local stores (well in general) so I went online, measured my feet, communicated with the seller, etc. Got a pair of used $700 boots for $160 shipped. Nobody locally even HAD boots. And if someone locally were to get boots, you know what they'd do? Go online and get them. So I just cut the middleman out. To be fair, too, some local businesses are just vultures. In figure skating again, coaches charge $20 or more to sharpen skates, and badmouth the hockey sharpeners saying they'll ruin your skates or whatever. The hockey sharpener here is fine. He charges $8. Why should I support that?

I love browsing shops. I just don't have any reasonably priced ones where I live, or I should say not a good selection of them. When I lived in the city, I could get almost anything I wanted at a good price within a few miles of home. I miss that a lot!

For one thing, I like to knit and sew, and I'd much rather get to feel and see up close the fabric or yarn I'm purchasing before I pay for it. The same goes for books, I'd like to open the book and flip through it first. I like to try clothing on, especially shoes! If I could afford to, I'd move back to the city in a flash, but housing prices were a lot higher there, and since that's my biggest monthly expense, I'm stuck with what I can afford, and shopping online.

As I said anyway, places like Tesco and ASDA (Wal-Mart outside the UK) sell lots of things like DVDs/BDs as well as electrical appliances and other bits and bobs. The larger ASDA supermarkets look and feel more like large warehouses than supermarkets in any case.



They're missing out on a lot.

If they have a debit card, they could always buy things off the Internet using that, as long as they go through trusted suppliers. It really isn't difficult.



Fair enough.



Do you not have neighbours that are always in that you can tell the postie to leave packages with? That might be easier as at least then you could get things signed for and looked after until you collect them.

OK, this post will be slightly less sarcastic (I hope).

A lot of people were upset that this place...



...went. They got over it.

Most of the people who are upset about it probably didn't buy a lot of stuff in the shop when it was around in the first place. I remember that a lot of that sort of thinking was in evidence when Woolworths went down the tubes. The people who were most vocal in being 'upset' about it were the very same people who hadn't actually bought much in there in years.

It's basic market forces. If a company does not make enough money to be able to sustain itself and continue, eventually it will - it must - fail.

There is some suggestion that HMV will continue in a smaller form, with the film and music companies allowing HMV to receive easy credit to keep it going. I can't imagine the music companies will be particularly interested though, as sales of CDs have gone down the tubes recently. Perhaps the film companies still need somewhere to flog their BDs, I don't know. I don't buy them. I buy all my DVDs (I don't bother with BD) over the Internet.



True, but if people do too much browsing and not enough purchasing, or even avoid the store altogether, then it will fail. Look at what has happened to Comet.

It's simple maths.



Have you tried surfing the web to see if there is any other gunk that is still remaining on there? You may have a trojan or some other disease on there.



Pensioners have plenty of time for computer lessons, because they're pensioners. Older people will be the main group that need a bit of help with computer lessons, as most younger people have grown up using them all, or almost all, their adult lives.



A bit of common sense goes a long way, as well as checking review threads.



You didn't make a huge mistake. I am just trying to tell you, gently, how your thinking on this is flawed. Don't do yourself down over it - it's just a conversation.

Yup - it's the same thing with cars from the 1960s and 1970s. Some of them were wonderful machines, but people wanted their creature comforts and more efficient and reliable ways of doing things. Plus, new regulations came into place. So the environment changes and time moves on. I don't like it, but that's the way it is.



Again, that's ludicrous.

It's for much the same reason that we shop in Aldi or Lidl and not in Waitrose - because the food is as good or better than in Waitrose and it's a damned sight cheaper all round.

joe 90, please do not be so upset, no-one means any harm or hurt towards you, its just their 'natural manner' of how they react ... take it as a compliment that they have taken the trouble to contribute, actually this thread is a very good one and thankyou for starting it ! !

i am mid fifties and apart from when I was a child taken around the two local towns fifteen and twenty five miles away i NEVER browse highstreet stores ... my clothes are an established 'uniform' that my wife buys for me or increasingly use the web, serves for business and all other time. partly its snobbery being among the 'great unwashed' but partly its because I have ordered my life to concentrate on things I prefer, countryside, study, my garden, helping nature etc.

the things I occasionally need to spend money on are specialist things and no shop could offer me the quality or specialism that I demand, I wouldn't even shop for pens and paper locally. and when I recently spent over a thousand pounds on custom-made cardboard boxes for my business (as always happens with local 'thickie' suppliers) they fcked it up ! ! I'm in the north east of England and the local populace struggle to reach the bar.......

I detest any form of high stret shopping, shops make me very very uncomfortable, i never ever used Woolworths, it was an absolute no-no for mwe to ever enter that shop, i always thought it cheap, downmarket, again the snobbery creeping in .... also I think i enetered a HMV thirty five years ago in the local city fifteen miles away and thought it horrible.

ps ... work on the regiastry ??