[telemachos]

This is tangential. I'm not really agreeing or disagreeing with your main point(s).

I miss browsing. I miss (good) record stores. I miss (good) used bookstores. Some of my favorite memories are of browsing used bookstores in the five boroughs of NYC. Nearly all of them are closed now. The Strand sells mostly new remainders - though I go there anyhow, because I miss browsing. You can sort of browse online, but it's really not the same at all.

I grant that I can search online and get books from all over the world. I do it all the time. So, it's not all bad - not at all. (Nowadays searches for a specific target go much better than in the past at those random used bookstores.) The future is amazing. But I miss browsing.

[tptacek]

It was fun hunting for things. It was fun finding out about the best record stores, which were always skillfully camouflaged to look like run-down used record stores. It was fun bumping into people and it was fun to have your cred affirmed by approving comments from the clerk when you bought a CD or asked them to order something from a catalogue.

But it is better this way for everybody but the middlemen.

[hboon]

Not really. Apple is the new middlemen (and has been for a while).

So more accurately: it's better for everybody but the previous middlemen.