[toofy]

it’s been this way forever. the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00, etc… all had generic trash movies and music too.

stop getting recs from algorithms and the entire world will open back up to you. just like top40 music and generic movies from back in the day, you’re getting the lowest common denominator recs.

i read a book about the music industry in the 80s (it’s been a couple years and i can’t remember the name now) but people called the top40 music from back then formulaic. they were convinced record labels had formulas to make their pop music stars. what do you think algorithms are? they’re feeding you trash.

again, stop getting your recommendations from algorithms and the world will open back up. get your recs from actual film or music geeks. go to your local record store, look at their wall of employee recs, or *gasp* talk to them and ask them.

[jijijijij]

Yes, and it's always been hot in summer!

> go to your local record store, look at their wall of employee recs, or gasp talk to them and ask them.

What local record store?

What local cinema?

What local bookshop?

Congrats, if you're resistant to addictive algorithms and same-day delivery convenience, but it's ignorant to deny the new baseline.

[Apocryphon]

Indie bookshops have had a revival in the past decade, it's big box book retailers who are in trouble.

https://apnews.com/article/independent-bookstores-expanding-...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/19/independent...

[toyg]

I understand your point, but it's slightly exaggerated. At least in Europe, any decently-sized city will have at least one of any of those. Not as many as there used to be, sure, but at least one.

[jijijijij]

I live in a big city. There are a few record stores, but if we're being honest, let's also not exaggerate by calling them my local store. And if I would opt for the journey, it's not like I would find this cool group of music nerds sharing secret gems. Vinyl is an expensive hobby and everything else is digital now. It's not like every niche artist got the means to press vinyl and the presumed cozy record store will hardly point you to bandcamp. Bit silly to pretend it's anything like it used to be in "your local record store".

At least in Germany, book shops and (small) cinemas are artificially kept alive through regulations (e.g. Buchpreisbindung) and public funding. Theaters got that too, techno clubs not so much. Lucky are the ones who still got a nice deal on rent, because without a solid revenue, your new whatever local scene experiment won't be in the city. Then recently, conservative politicians also decided to attach ideological strings to the funding. What's a good book shop and what's a bad book shop gets intransparently decided by the domestic intelligence service now. The stories our times need will get you demonetized. As we speak, lobbyists are relentlessly trying to push the compliance machinery onto our devices, so we're not tempted by anything outside of commercial supervision either.

It's all converging towards the brave new mainstream. Pretending like all these trends are just fads is wilful ignorance. Media attention may come and go, but the insects remain dead, temperatures unprecedented and art compliant.

We are hardly in need of cyberpunk fiction anymore, tho.

[korse]

I dunno, I've mostly lived in urban areas but I've always had record shops near to where I live. Sure, there are far less than there used to be, but the ones that made the cut appear to be on solid footing.

[tayo42]

Im in a US suburb and have a few places to buy records, books and to go to a movie. I don't think it's so unusual

[GuinansEyebrows]

i think (safe guess) a plurality of hn users live in cities with most or all of these types of businesses. unless you're somewhere very rural, exurban or suburban, you owe it to yourself to at least try to find these places (and even if you are, you might be surprised at what's nearby).

[rawTruthHurts]

It's been never at this pace, nor in this quantity.

[nightfly]

But it's always been at a faster pace and a higher quantity than whatever decade preceded it