“My point is, without specialty shops, you have a harder time accessing specialty content....unless you actively seek it out.”
My point is, I guess, specialty shops themselves represented actively seeking things out. If it became a habit to some, well, so can surfing the web. Only moreso, as it’s infinitely easier.
That’s only true if you’re from a town with nothing but big box chain stores.
The indie shops represented a community, a curated pick of quality material that wasn’t initially promoted in the mainstream. There were artists with regional popularity, or hometown support now.
You don’t get that with a massive database virtual store, flooded with titles that never sell a single copy.
People have access to unlimited information on the internet. They are still idiots when it comes to politics, history, economics, science, and music.
Guidance and mentorship can be good thing. Doesn’t mean that you can’t discover some things (or truths) on your own. But wandering in a vast wasteland (or the warehouse at the Smithsonian) doesn’t mean that you will automatically gravitate to what you are looking for.
Life experiences provide understanding and context. Being told that some obscure cut is “good” may not sound that way if you haven’t heard “this” or grown up in that environment.
The signal to noise ratio of people hyping things has become higher than ever. And now we have hipsters for food called “foodies”.
No one would put up with their friend telling them EVERY meal what they had for breakfast, lunch and dinner the day before. On line, they think we all give a damn.
The internet music options are pretty much the same. You’ll be advised on a lot but you’d better have a good BS filter. And if you want to BUY something rather than just copy it, you still have to find a vendor.
The problem with surfing he web as a way to find music, books or movies is on the web you find what you’re looking for, but rarely anything else. When you frequent a personally run media store you get exposed to things you weren’t looking for. You walk in to music on the stereo, the guys behind the counter get to know you and your taste, you run into other people and can chat with them. Some of my favorite bands I was exposed to because the record store guy said “well if you like them you should give these guys a try”, the web can’t do that. Amazon tries with “others who bought this bought” but it’s not the same as a person you see every couple of weeks. The web creates tunnel vision where the indie stores create buffets.