Amazon is essentially the Wal-Mart of the Net and I doubt they will die off anytime soon.
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Ya never really know.
WalMart is competing w/Amazon on line, while downsizing their brick & mortar operations in terms of employees. Most of my local store checkouts are automated. Stock has been consolidated, with many name brand items eliminated. Rumors abound (online)that the suits have installed *secret* mics in the checkouts to monitor people’s reactions. In my area, these conversations, vis-a-vis WMs changes, are NSFW. (OTOH, the store manager was clueless about this rumor, which doesn’t mean it isn’t true)
IDK. I’m old to enough to remember when Sears and J.C. Penny dominated retail. Who ever thought the future would be one where people paid to wear logos? In 1958, in a HS class, we had to prepare a report on the future. I chose fashion as a topic and drew a model with green hair. Sneers ensued. “Who would ever dye their hair green?” I wonder if that person has grandchildren today?
As to Goog:I bet they survive, thrive and continue to dominate. Google’s version of the office suite is taught in the schools. Even this old lady uses it. Will I continue to pay for Microsoft Office? I’m beginning to question why. Word is no more private than Docs, once I enable editing.
When I notified all my accounts of an email/phone change, I did not notify Google. When I went to my Google account, they already knew.
I think the future happens to us as a confluence of events and influences. We take our milieu for granted. We’re too close, too immersed to evaluate it objectively.
I bet lots of folks went broke on buggy whip futures.
It just so happened I went to Wal-Mart yesterday (happens very infrequently, mind you, they are next to the post office and I was mailing my tax return). It was late afternoon yet surprisingly few shoppers. I found what I wanted and went to the checkout. There was a young black lady as cashier with NOBODY waiting in line.
While I was there, I found sausages made by a local company and added it to my cart. I asked the cashier if she knew why I bought it. She said nothing but shrugged. I told her they were the only ones to sell eight sausages. How many are there in a bag of hot dog buns? Eight. You’d have thought nobody did market research in that industry. The cashier just looked at me and said nothing.