[majormajor]

Small businesses and serendipity were largely crushed before Amazon became dominant.

Albums were bought at Best Buy, graphics cards were bought at Fry's, books were bought at Borders, tools were bought at Home Depot, groceries were bought at Kroger... (or sometimes they were almost all bought at Walmart or Target instead of any of those!)

Bezos was rich before the next-day-everything-fulfill-as-fast-as-possible push of the last decade. What did the warehouse environment look like back then? It won by doing better, but unforunately that alone isn't good enough, you have to FOREVER get more and more efficient, so the market demands exploitation at some point.