March 21, 2021

#04: What do we lose in all this convenience?

I’ll start off by saying this: I am a sucker for nostalgia. One trip to my attic, and you’ll find every issue of Nintendo Power, all the boxes to my N64 games, DragonBall Z VHS tapes, and many more relics that I simply cannot part with. I’ve also been walking around with a flip phone for almost two months. So, just know that what I am about to ask doesn’t come from a for longing look to the past.

Earlier in the week, I read an article published in The New Yorker focusing on an indie bookstore owner’s fight against Amazon. Here, Danny Caine, owner of The Raven Book Store in Lawrence, KS, explains just how Amazon undercuts competition and drives others out of business. “Amazon has a much larger inventory—not only of books but of other goods with much higher profit margins—as well as many other revenue streams. The company can afford to take a loss on books. ’If you’ve ever wondered why it seems like ‘there are no bookstores anymore’ or why retail businesses keep closing in your downtown, this is it,’ Caine wrote. The Raven can’t afford losses like Amazon.” Amazon is so big and rakes in so much money that they can basically undercut prices, operate at a loss, and wait until you go out of business. They’ve done this to the book industry, toy industry, diaper industry, and many small business retail shops across the country. While they do this, Amazon barely pays any taxes at all. So, as they turn downtown America into graveyards, they essentially give nothing back.

The article acts as promotion for Mr. Caine’s new book “How to Resist Amazon and Why,” which itself is a longform version of Caine’s smaller Zine of the same name. (Zines are small, physical pamphlets of information published in small batches.) Interested in the story and Caine’s struggle, I purchased the Zine. It came almost five days later in a hand-addressed envelope to my house. (It may even be Danny Caine’s handwriting!) In it, Caine has his letter to Jeff Bezos and a litany of links to articles that cover Amazon’s abuse of power, and the price we all pay for two-day delivery. I read the sixteen-page Zine last night just before bed reflecting on my own shopping habits, and the last thing I saw before I turned the light off was an Amazon Echo and Amazon Kindle.

As I laid there in the dark, my final thought of the day swept over me: what do we lose in all this convenience?

When my eyes opened again it was morning. With a fresh pot of coffee made, my wife and I sat down and noticed an interesting documentary ironically recommended to us on Netflix: The Last Blockbuster. Smiles immediately formed on our faces. We are both children of the 90s and have nothing but fond memories of the blue and yellow video stores. (Most likely because our parents paid our late fees.) We briefly reminisced about our experiences before hitting play. The film merges two stories together: one of them is about the rise and fall of Blockbuster Video, and the other is about the last Blockbuster Video store in the world. It’s really is a nice trip into yesterday showing how important the video store was to the community, and how important the last Blockbuster is to Bend, Oregon, the location of the store.

Near the end of the documentary, former Blockbuster CFO Tom Casey was asked if he misses the video store experience. Casey quickly answered, “I don’t think anyone does.” The documentary narrator joking retorts, “I think people in Bend Oregon would disagree.” Casey answers again, “Then I would say they are offering something else. They are offering an experience that’s more than just DVDs. They are offering relationships.” To stay afloat all these years, that’s exactly what the last Blockbuster offers. There is value placed on Blockbuster by the community of Bend. Sure, there are more convent ways form them to rent movies, but what is lost in that convenience is the human touch, personal relationships, and serendipitous meetings. In essence, a community center.

What Tom Casey says here connected to something I read the night before. In Caine’s letter to Bezos, he writes, “I’d love to show you around a vibrant community anchored by small businesses, here in Kansas, here on earth. Maybe it will help you realize that some things don’t need to be disrupted.”

I have seen, in my own town, the closing of businesses as everything becomes more and more connected to devices and the internet. This was occurring even before the COVID-19 pandemic, and Amazon has only benefited since then. As the internet makes physical location less and less relevant, what will happen to our local community centers? What will bring us together?

So, now I turn to you and ask you: Is what we gain in convenience worth it?

Thanks for reading.