Comment on It used to be a library
DrSoap@lemmy.world 2 weeks agoOnce its no longer financially viable, they’ll let go. Right now its exciting and accessible. A lot of new people are online shopping when they never have before. I think eventually those people will get sick of it. The excitement of getting packages and filling your house with stuff you don’t need will wane.
maybemaybehopefully@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I don’t think they will let it go. At the end of the day, people still need to buy stuff, and if they can do it from a phone, that saves them a trip to whichever physical store they would have gone to. Also, sometimes people need highly specific things that they can’t get at nearby stores, or maybe there is a nearby store with the thing but they have to search to find out about it.
If they let it go, it’ll probably be due to an economic crisis in which shipping is too expensive and no one can afford to buy anything other than groceries anyway. It won’t be because people stopped wanting to buy stuff. And at that point, we’ll be screwed because no one will be able to afford to maintain the internet either.
I think if we’re going to get the Library of Alexandria back, we’re going to need to build dedicated corporation-free online spaces where people can share information, and we’ll need to figure out a viable funding model for that. Like, well, libraries.