Conventionally, when we need something, we visit the market, enter the shops, and ask for our commodities. But with shopping apps having come up, all we need is just look up the items in our mobile phone, click on it, make the payment, and lo! in 10 minutes the door bell rings and the commodity arrives. Isn’t it the exact relation between a server and the client ??
I personally would be thrilled if day-to-day commerce could be settled using HTTP return codes. If I could IP-block the small-talk, DNS blackhole the advertisements, and just do precisely the transactional things I have to do, without being accosted by pushy salespeople, the inconvenience of driving and parking in car-dependent suburbia with no realistic, properly-funded transit options, this would honestly be great.
The modern in-person shopping experience is not a place of honor. It is an affront to call shopping malls and big-box stores as “the future” when it so degrades the human experience, reducing people into wallets with emotions ripe for exploitation.
Online shopping did not kill in-person shopping. The in-person shopping experience destroyed itself, poisoning the idea for whole swaths of the next generation. Only time can possibly heal these deep wounds.
Mostly it’s just cheaper due to lower staff and rent costs, and maybe more efficient logistics, and less travel time / search cost for customer.
I still like in person shopping though, when i can, just pay the premium to be able to see what I’m buying and poke it a few times to check the quality.
Agree about large car park based shopping centres though, they’re shite.
It’d be nice to have town centre back and real markets. Drive out the infestation of fucking hipster food stalls charging over a tenner for lunch. But there just isn’t the trade to support more than a few real market stalls in my town.