[neither_color]

And those businesses have a right to exist because... ?

Those businesses were working well enough in 2019 but were disproportionately affected by lock-downs that favored large retailers and chains. Amazon and WalMart had a great year but they don't treat their bottom tier workers any better than mom and pop stores do, in fact we subsidize Wal Mart's workers all the same. I'm tired of seeing small businesses blamed when they're the victims. Every time I have to wear a mask from the door of the restaurant to the table, or see an improvised "indoor-outdoor" shed structure built on the sidewalk I'm astounded at the sheer lunacy of it all. They've had to spend a much bigger chunk of their cash flow than some large corporation that can pick up the phone and get a few more billion in loans on a whim, and they have to compete for would-be workers getting "free" inflated money every week.

[dredmorbius]

I hope it's clear that my "what right..." quip is alluding to similar attitutes addressed toward labour or residents. The point is that markets are an evolutionary system, that what was viable yesterday may not be viable tomorrow, and that the process of creative destruction moves forward.

Another view is that sometimes the forces of destruction are overly effective, and that some degree of intervention might be required.

What's curious is that the nature of the firms impacted by rising labour costs hasn't been clearly defined, and certainly wasn't at the top of this thread. I've commented in another thread about looking for solid data on this, and have found little. (See this here, specifically the 3rd comment down by myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29235409) You're asserting that it's mom'n'pops rather than "large retailers and chains". I've seen a mix of reports suggesting both, though overall startlingly little clarity in news coverage.

I don't share your views on the apparent "lunacy" of masks at all.

To the extent that this may represent a new order and changing regime of public health and risk, an alternate narrative is that the previous structure had been built on a false presumption of risks and consequences, ignoring real ones, which, once those materialised, have changed the calculus and shown that what appeared to be a defensible, viable business and operational strategy was in fact not. It's not the world that's changed but our understanding of it. The risk was always present. It's just that now we're very much aware of it.

To the extent that this invalidates an ideologically-founded view of how "free markets" do or should operate and/or be regulated ... well, that's something which could also deserve more consideration.