Amazon.com

One part of our assignment was to familiarize ourselves with Amazon.com. Happily, for me that is easy. That is probably my most used website.

Our family probably spends more than $1,000 per year at Amazon.com. We love books. One book we recently purchased there was AFLUENZA, by DeGraff, Wann and Naylor. This book mentions Amazon.com, but not in a favorable light.

Amazon is seen as a culture killer, a giant that killed off and is killing off small business. Sure, it is very easy, when looking for a book, to go to Amizon. There have only been a few times I couldn’t find what I was looking for there. (E.g., a 1888 edition of a Greek and Latin Classical Dictionary.) How many book stores can compete with Amazon.

Homo Sapiens Consumens likes convenience. He likes TV Dinners instead of preparing everything from scratch (except, thank God, for my wife). He likes shopping from the convenience of his living room. The Ma and Pa Bookstore around the corner doesn’t stand a chance.

The authors of Affluenza had two complaints about Amazon and Internet shopping:

First, it kills off local business. I think that complaint is just plain wrong. Sure it is easier to shop at Amazon, but if Ma and Pa Booksellers have any brains, they too will have a presence on the Internet. Or maybe, their only presence will be on the Internet. It is ridiculously easy to set up shop on the Internet. Anyone who can figure out how to work Ebay and Paypal can do it. If anything, the Internet is an incentive for new businesses, not a death march for them.

The second complaint, unfortunately has more validity. The Afluenza authors complain that Internet shopping rules out one of the nice things about old time shopping, the ambiance. Yeah, sure the internet is more convenient than going out to a bookstore, but is it better? At bookstores you can get into conversations with people and exchange ideas and thought. That alone is worth the trip. I have to say, some of the best conversations I have ever had in my life took place in bookstores.

If I had to pick out one characteristic of our society that I think the Internet is promoting more than any other, I would have to say it was isolation. On the internet one shops alone; one argues alone; one lives alone. I have heard of long distance relationships, dating type relationships taking place primarily on the internet. In some cases, people who never meet have a “relationship.”

Not my cup of tea. The internet has its uses, but dating isn’t one of them. I grant you shopping on the internet, if it is not for books, is probably okay. I never had a great conversation in a refrigerator store, or shopping for shoes. But some things, it really is better to buy in person.