Rebekka Zuckermann Kristiansen's Blog

If you were to observe the current state of affairs in the world of trading goods and services on the local level – going downtown to get a new outfit or a new record or maybe even something fancy like a new car – and then imagine what that would be like without our massive access to information online. What would the world look like?

First of all, if there is no Amazon, the stores would be a lot more busy – you’d have a whole bunch of people “just looking around”, the occasional neurotic shopper that cannot stand lines, lound voices or children within a 5 meter radius, the annoying people who know they want something – they just don’t know what that is yet. (But no, you cannot ask the salesperson a question because these people also need their undivided attention while they apathetically look for stuff they aparently need.)

Secondly, we would have too much noise to ever enjoy anything related to shopping. Depression would go through the roof and we would all be miserable, because lets face it, the marketing provided by the internet does make it easier for the consumers to filter what they ultimately want to purchase. The internet also allows consumers to purchase efficiently and privately, further increasing any technologially advanced business’ ability to sell their goods. The internet (and thus Amazon, etc) does hold a number of positive aspects for business, so maybe dont shoot it down the next time Amazon sends you a “suggestions based on your recent purchases” list, even though we all know Amazon never really understands what we want.