[leetcrew]

it's very much a trade off. I too remember going to independent record stores when I was younger. every once in a while, I got into a cool conversation with someone who worked there and discovered a new band. much more often, I left empty handed because they didn't have the specific album I wanted. I didn't have particularly obscure taste; it's just not practical for a small shop to stock every single album that exists.

if you want someone to pick a reasonably good example of X for you or if you actually enjoy the experience of shopping, then yeah, amazon sucks. if you want a specific thing, amazon is pretty much the best store ever; if it's out of stock on amazon, it's probably out of stock everywhere else too.