Just a random thought I haven’t seen written anywhere. One of the reasons on-line shopping can compete with bricks-and-mortar retailing is because it doesn’t bear the cost of “shrinkage,” defined as shoplifting by both customers and employees.
As big city district attorneys shy away from jailing shoplifters, because too many minorities ended up jailed, the advantage this gives on-line retailing grows. And the number of physical stores and shops declines, as does employment therein.
The warehouses from which stuff is shipped to homes and apartments were there anyway, only now they’ve cut out the middleman which was the retailer, and replaced him or her with a delivery person.
If you imagine a future without shops and stores, with everyone holed up in their dwellings having everything delivered, you may not be so very far wrong. The need for cities likewise declines. Somehow the image doesn’t seem a healthy one. We are already too isolated, not healthy for a social species like ours.
