And the way books are sold has an influence on what books are sold. Independent booksellers increase the chances for some worthwhile books that are not getting a big promotional boost, for example. So direct buying and small bookseller buying are not (qualitatively) interchangeable, imo. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Also, Bookselling doesn't necessitate much human input ; your average FNAC sells a lots of books with few employees, whereas haircutting is a labor intensive activity.
What it means is that when inequality rises, and the lower salaries are rising slower than average income, such labor intensive activities are becoming cheaper : the cost of an haircut is based on that of low wage labour. So haircutting is getting an price advantage... and rises. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Not to speak of the fact that the large bookstores used to employ people who knew about books, but now selling books is at FNAC is just another low-paying, unskilled service job. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Not that I don't like browsing in real bookshops and a Waterstones etc. can have a larger stock of specialist books, and seats and coffee :-) Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience
