alt Hacker NewsI miss toy stores, butcher shops, record stores, movie renal stores... everything moving online has really made culture so isolating and a lot harder to meet people. I remember when I was younger I could just go to a retail area and get some coffee, look at magazines/books, then go to a record store, then a video game store, a pet store, etc. Now everything is either a big box store in a giant parking lot or online. There are obviously exceptions, but I remember having so many more retail options and now they can't compete with Amazon and the rising cost of real estate and labor. Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone...
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> a big box store in a giant parking lot
You know it's bad when stores don't even "have" parking lots, but are "in" them.
> Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone...
People are choosing in large numbers to buy subscription services, order food online, stay at home, and avoid socializing with other people; and the market is supplying demand. This isn't something that some external power is forcing on an unwilling populace. Indeed, if you think that people are systematically making consumer choices that are easy and convenient in the short term but bad for the fabric of society in the long term (a common-enough complaint about human society), then the "they" who wants to force people to change their habits en masse is you.