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Pvt-Public
·I swore I’d never use those self checkouts at stores as i didn’t like how they were taking jobs from people but certain places are now not giving an option.
The corner jewelry store
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janice&fred
·I’m now enjoying buying less, buying better, and buying local A LOT more
Yep. When Ebay started to catch on years ago I bought a few watches via auction. I think it's been like 15 years since I bought a watch online. Our collection is now much more vibrant and eclectic. We are limited to what we stumble across in person, but no longer at fault for choice. Having anything one wants available at the click of a mouse might be convenient but the downside for this hobby is everyone's collection starts to look similar. Certain stuff becomes sought after and "hot" by virtue of internet buzz. Same for big online retailers like amazon. Since when are we all so gullible? This lazy madness will have it's price. Ghost towns used to be associated with the old west. Get ready for ghost cities.
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Fritz
·Those things that look like DVD’s from far away. It’s basically a movie you can read.
a device you wear on your wrist that tells the time?
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ReturnOfUltraman
·
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MadisonsJewelers
·Preposterous. That’s so old-fashioned. Use an iPhone instead because the numbers are bigger, AND you can call or text.
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SkunkPrince
·Hey, just saving trees. Electrons are more recyclable.
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lillatroll
·The town I work in has a lot of problems. The state took over its finances due too poor management. Anyway there a a jewelry store that sells a bunch of watches on the Main Street and it’s been there for decades. They are now going out of business, I popped in to see what they have. I bought a seiko gmt, I think it was 190 with their going out of business sale. Don’t have a picture as I got it for a gift for someone and already mailed it out. Now it wasn’t a horrible deal, it was a bit of a pity buy for me as I got into a discussion with the sales girl and she was bummed out about losing her job.
Anyway that same seiko gmt was 166 at jomashop. Granted it was sold out but still how do the little mom and pop places compete? I know the chains have similar issues and this question can be asked about any retail brick and mortar shop. It’s sad to see. I do like to support local owned business when possible but I do also need to think about finances. It’s just sad overall I can’t tell you how many small business and even big business I’ve seen close shop over the past year in the rundown city I work in. Even with covid out of the picture it must be incredibly difficult for these small watch/jewelry stores to do business.
It doesn't have to be this way, it just requires a fairer distribution of wealth. I see news channels congratulate the wife of Amazon founder for giving away 12 billion dollars from her 60 billion dollars personal fortune. There is something wrong with a society that allows an individual to amass that kind of money. Amazon screws its workforce over, doesn't pay taxes and dictates what gets sold and who sells it. That's not free enterprise that's a dictatorship.
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arturo7
·Ghost towns used to be associated with the old west. Get ready for ghost cities.
Now that we've discovered that many jobs can be done remotely, your prognosis may not be inaccurate.
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arturo7
·Is the OF sales forum considered "online shopping"?
Of course not!
It's OF sales forum shopping!
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Wlcutter
·I am a fully fledged socialist. From my perspective we get told that cheap is better, which makes sense on one level. But if something is cheaper at one shop then more often than not it means someone somewhere is getting screwed over. That might be in terms of low wages or working conditions. We as the end user don't care because the only thing that we care about is getting everything as cheaply as possible.
It doesn't have to be this way, it just requires a fairer distribution of wealth. I see news channels congratulate the wife of Amazon founder for giving away 12 billion dollars from her 60 billion dollars personal fortune. There is something wrong with a society that allows an individual to amass that kind of money. Amazon screws its workforce over, doesn't pay taxes and dictates what gets sold and who sells it. That's not free enterprise that's a dictatorship.
I resonate lots with this, largely because implicit in any consideration of socialism is its ability to mitigate the spread of what we consider "the market." Socialism, in the broadest way, simply declares certain things as fundamentally important enough to be protected from market forces; in the US, grades 1-12 education, certain bits of health care, and some unemployment benefits are protected, but we're watching this change almost shockingly quickly. There are precious few things which fundamentally don't have a market value (you're still not allowed to sell your organs, for instance). Note I'm not saying this stuff about the US because it's good or bad; it's just where I live, and so what I know.
Some books and thinkers (Lewis Hyde's The Gift; FS Michaels's Monoculture; Konczal's upcoming Freedom From the Market; there's others) try to make clear why a market economy's a bad idea in *all* areas. Reasonable people are certainly allowed to come to different conclusions (I don't believe I'd be willing to pay someone to linestand for me, a la task rabbit, for instance), but that fairly gnarly and philosophic question's gonna need to get asked by more and more of us: what services/products should be considered market items (and concomitantly pick up a dollar value), and what shouldn't be? Folks who are into mechanical vintage watches are already, in some ways, well-versed on this stuff: most of us have a watch we wouldn't sell at any price, for sentimental reasons. Plenty of us have an opinion about, say, Paul Newman's $17.8M Daytona, even as we know that that's what the market said it was for (three years back, but still). Most of us appreciate watches which are fundamentally less efficient and useful and accurate than the phones we carry, and so we wear/collect these watches for other, ancillary reasons (which isn't to say they aren't market reasons: few things telegraph taste and wealth as quickly, for some, as watches).
In general practice, getting to the points raised by @Walrus: times are really hard for small shops (my CW21 certified father sold his clock- and watch-repair business last year; two good friends run very different shops, one in rural Indiana, the other in the Twin Cities in Minnesota). Until and unless a big enough % of us are materially comfortable enough to be able to make market decisions based on either non-market or secondary-market metrics (meaning: I'll buy something local because I like the shop, or want selfishly to guarantee that the watchmaker at the shop stays employed so he can work on my stuff, not because the item's cheapest there), it will continue to be brutal.
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DaveK
·Is the OF sales forum considered "online shopping"?
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Walrus
·Well this got a bit political not my intent. When it comes to companies I think we look at it wrong sometimes here. I think Apple still has a 2 trillion dollar market cap. We look at these companies with awe, rightly so to a point. But who gives them that power? It’s the consumer. When it comes right down to it consumer spending is what drives these companies. If it weren’t for us they wouldn’t be. I think we lose sight of that sometimes. Granted the high power printers at the federal reserve come into play. It’s too bad we don’t utilize the power we have at times. But screw it it’s Friday night it was a hell of a week no time for deep thought now let me watch Netflix on my iPhone and google things of interest while I listen to satellite radio in the background.
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SkunkPrince
·while I listen to satellite radio in the background.
I like Radio Classics, except some certain sitcoms that make me wanna puke.
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worldwidewes
·One good thing about covid, our recycling / donation centre was closed for a long stretch. Stuff really piled up after a while and I realized that, sweet baby Jesus, do we buy and toss a lot of stuff! I’m now enjoying buying less, buying better, and buying local A LOT more, even if it costs a bit more
I really wonder if this is something that will persist over time. I'm in the same boat. I've bought lot less stuff, I've cooked much more for myself, and I've really enjoyed it.
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DaveK
·I really wonder if this is something that will persist over time. I'm in the same boat. I've bought lot less stuff, I've cooked much more for myself, and I've really enjoyed it.
