> We're repeating the same pattern with online shopping, malls and stores everywhere are closing because of our collective actions, we're not losing them like I lost my keys.

A huge part of that is rents. Basically, a store that owns their property outright or even on mortgage has far less worries when business turns down during a crisis. Take Covid - a year or two, depending on where you were, in more or less lockdown conditions.

A store that was owner-owned? No big deal. Staff was paid for by government assistance, not much ongoing cost for the building. Owned but mortgaged? Cut a deal with the bank, no bank wants to go through a 2007ff event again and they also got assistance for loans. But a store that was rented? Yeetie yeetie. Commercial renters have zero protections anywhere, and landlords are nonforgiving - especially when they are backed by REITs and other investment vehicles.

Recent history is filled with examples of investment funds that behave like vultures - seek out a company that has sizable owned real estate, buy stocks, force the management to sell off the real estate in a heavily biased sale-and-lease-back maneuver, put the acquisition debt on the company's ledgers, sell off the real estate and let the husk of the company wither.