Closing Borders---books
Bensblurb #596 1/11/11
Borders: aka Creative Destruction
So our local Borders is closing. Sad but inevitable, unless of course it had been a government installation.
Inevitable, you must surely agree, because who reads a book anymore, when we can gaze at our PC screens or those little electronic gadgets the youngsters carry around?
But we old fogies treasured our local, un-crowded Borders--an ideal place to browse and sip some coffee. In contrast, the one down in Central Park is usually crawling with nerds and way too busy.
A big problem, however, with both of them is that both, unlike a major competitor, have failed to provide lots of unprofitable PCs for free customer use.
Yes, their competition is virtually unique for Borders and other book stores. (They say Barnes & Noble is ill also.) Visit any local tax-supported library and you’ll see why. Notice their rows of PC screens. Users wait in lines to gain access, or something.
And they attract school kids galore. Not that our local libraries are governmental, per se. But they might as well be. They’re political sacred cows.
I don’t know what will take over that space in Stafford Market Place when Borders closes. Maybe another pet superstore? Just what we need.
What would be really nice: A new Olde Country Buffet, like the one near Potomac Mills or the other one that recently closed, unfortunately, on Route 3 west of Fredericksburg.
It may all be part of a process called creative destruction, a term coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942 to denote a "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one," says Investopedia.
Of course, it doesn’t apply to government programs. The post office, ethanol, EPA, TSA and IRS leap to mind. Like the libraries, they keep rocking along. But with our governments increasingly going bust, we face a troubled future.
Meanwhile, the commercial sector makes needed changes. Remember Hecht. Woodies. Montgomery Ward. Pontiacs. And now, Borders. RIP.
Also close to home, I lament Bon Foods, Frank’s, Gargoyles, Fitness University. Instead, we get Rosner Toyota and a vacant desert in Aquia Towne Center. Seriously.
And just look where the fine old Roy Rogers used to be on U.S. 1 at 610. It became Arby’s, then Anita’s, and now who knows what.
Borders’ sad tale carries larger meaning, of course. As explained in a tract forwarded to me by friend Raymond McDaniel, “You say you will never give up the physical book ... I said the same thing...[but] you can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And...once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story...and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.”
No way.
Ben Blankenship is a long-time journalist and a resident of Aquia Harbour. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com
Borders: aka Creative Destruction
So our local Borders is closing. Sad but inevitable, unless of course it had been a government installation.
Inevitable, you must surely agree, because who reads a book anymore, when we can gaze at our PC screens or those little electronic gadgets the youngsters carry around?
But we old fogies treasured our local, un-crowded Borders--an ideal place to browse and sip some coffee. In contrast, the one down in Central Park is usually crawling with nerds and way too busy.
A big problem, however, with both of them is that both, unlike a major competitor, have failed to provide lots of unprofitable PCs for free customer use.
Yes, their competition is virtually unique for Borders and other book stores. (They say Barnes & Noble is ill also.) Visit any local tax-supported library and you’ll see why. Notice their rows of PC screens. Users wait in lines to gain access, or something.
And they attract school kids galore. Not that our local libraries are governmental, per se. But they might as well be. They’re political sacred cows.
I don’t know what will take over that space in Stafford Market Place when Borders closes. Maybe another pet superstore? Just what we need.
What would be really nice: A new Olde Country Buffet, like the one near Potomac Mills or the other one that recently closed, unfortunately, on Route 3 west of Fredericksburg.
It may all be part of a process called creative destruction, a term coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942 to denote a "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one," says Investopedia.
Of course, it doesn’t apply to government programs. The post office, ethanol, EPA, TSA and IRS leap to mind. Like the libraries, they keep rocking along. But with our governments increasingly going bust, we face a troubled future.
Meanwhile, the commercial sector makes needed changes. Remember Hecht. Woodies. Montgomery Ward. Pontiacs. And now, Borders. RIP.
Also close to home, I lament Bon Foods, Frank’s, Gargoyles, Fitness University. Instead, we get Rosner Toyota and a vacant desert in Aquia Towne Center. Seriously.
And just look where the fine old Roy Rogers used to be on U.S. 1 at 610. It became Arby’s, then Anita’s, and now who knows what.
Borders’ sad tale carries larger meaning, of course. As explained in a tract forwarded to me by friend Raymond McDaniel, “You say you will never give up the physical book ... I said the same thing...[but] you can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And...once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story...and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.”
No way.
Ben Blankenship is a long-time journalist and a resident of Aquia Harbour. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com
posted by Ben Blankenship at
7:19 AM
