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Online vs Offline bookstores

There has been a deluge of support for local bookstores across the internet. I am going to take the contrarian view on this and say that buying books online is much better.
Physical bookstores suck to say the least. I remember my experiences way back when I was a kid and hunting for something to read. The people who ran the shops would usually know nothing about the books whatsoever. I remember looking for American Gods by Neil Gaiman and being asked to spell his name and Gaiman is no small fry by any stretch of imagination. The guys there know absolutely nothing of what I want. Next once by some chance you find the book that you are looking for you have to stand in line to get the thing billed. The whole process is lengthy and painful to say the least. Also till recently most books didn't let you read when you got to the shop which means that you would have to buy the book just based on the blurbs without any other signal.
Buying books online is just easier and better. You can look for reviews. Most books have extracts so it is easy to get a feeler for the book. The billing is far easier and makes for a much better experience. They deliver the books to your place. My reading for once has increased tremendously since online book stores came into the picture.
The romanticists claim that bookshops curate and there is no better way to discover books than on the shelves but that is a bunch of nonsense and a way of clinging to the past. The internet has tons of curated content and is a much better way to discover books. There are recommendation engines so far ahead that no one else can complete. Librarything and goodreads usually give me the best recommendations.
Old businesses give way to new ones. Its a fact of life. Local bookstores should move on and accept that online is simply better. There is no way they can compete with the quantity and quality of offer.
Amazon is not an enemy of books.. They have probably done more for increasing reading in the last 10 years other than Harry Potter.

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