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by ghaff 2202 days ago
Many ebooks have some degree of preview. In some cases, it's imperfect, but it seems overall at least roughly equivalent to a bookstore.
1 comments

It’s not roughly equivalent. I often look at the free previews on Amazon and Google Books to check print citations or read a few pages from a chapter of interest, but usually the pages I want to read are unavailable. An online equivalent to bookstores is not possible because there’s no way to glare at a customer for treating the store as a library.