“without needing to special order them”
That’s just the thing: it’s so easy and natural to “special order” things now that it’s no longer “special.”
“Think of it as the difference between relying on NY Times or Drudge, and having a Free Republic, or whatever else is in your bookmarks list”
I can’t get my head around this analogy, for my entire point was that the internet has made specialty shops more and more irrelevant. So the choice isn’t between the Times and the internet; it’s between the olden days of big name, regional, and local publications, and perhaps amateur papers and “zines” and the brave new world of the interwebs.
My point is, without specialty shops, you have a harder time accessing specialty content....unless you actively seek it out.
On one hand, you can find a book or film virtually any topic you can think of. On the other hand, with rare exceptions, a lot of good stuff slips through the cracks, and marketing controls what gets exposure, and turns a profit.