"Smaller shops will serve niches that Amazon doesn't."

To be honest, my experience is rather the other way around... I expect Amazon to have the stuff my local shops don't.

If I'm going to a brick and mortar store it's generally out of desperation and quick need, knowing I'll be forced to buy low quality crap for bad prices.

Walgreens or Walmart, yes. But there are plenty of tiny shops around town that have handmade stuff or quality merchandise that you can't get on Amazon. I know I wouldn't buy a solid-wood antique furniture set from Amazon, for example.

He's not talking about small brick-and-mortar shops, he's talking about small web shops. There's tons of specialty web shops that have stuff you won't find on Amazon (or worse, as I found recently with the Litter-Robot litter box I was looking at, it's available on Amazon for 3x as much as it costs from the manufacturer, because the Amazon seller is a scammer that just buys the item and ships to your address and pockets the difference).

"Quality stuff at the cheapest prices" is how we got into this corporate-oligarchy mess in the first place...

You expect consumers to pick crappier stuff, at higher prices and more inconvenience?

Or that the companies who provide better/faster/cheaper not to grow large on providing what the people want at the prices they want to pay?

> I just want quality stuff at the cheapest prices.

Which Amazon has been spammed by chinese dropshippers.

> cheapest prices

Not always. Depends what you're looking for.

Yeah, and it's really annoying when you're looking for certain items that have many generics.

Item for item, I find eBay buy it now prices at least 10 percent cheaper.