This isn't just about automation. It's also about vertical integration into one company. If all we care about is efficiency then why break up the railroad barons or company towns?
Because competition, despite some inefficiencies, makes for a more robust market. Also, we don't want our kids working in the mines.
Bailouts from taxpayers aren't a sign of robustness either. They are a sign of fragile, easily bought government and large players dominating markets.
From another stratecherry post:
> if an efficient market means that all of the profits flow to Silicon Valley, why should India particularly care about efficiency
https://stratechery.com/2020/india-jio-and-the-four-internet...
If it was just big box stores, we could have eventually pulled back and imposed a balance by limiting what range of goods and services could be offered by any one store, or come up with ways to prop up mom and pop. Amazon made those old models irrecoverably obsolete though. The question is going to be how to achieve a healthy market while keeping the benefits of vertical integration. Splitting the logistics division of Amazon away from the online store and content services might work.
But, you know, it sort of proves in an interesting point. Market/Technical/Cultural forces will push things one direction, but groups can choose to pay the higher costs to go in alternate directions.
It will be interesting to see where cultural sub-groups maintain either existing (but now niche) or otherwise alternative vestiges of the current-mainstream when the rest of the economy moves onto something else.
Are bookshops like this? A legacy of the pre-online/pre-megaseller era, but maintained by the bookish minority? Now potentially augmented by a coffee/tea shop and a greater focus on community events? Where else is this happening?
Whatever the solution ends up being, it won't involve the return of brick and mortar - online shopping and Amazon style logistics are here to stay. Breaking up Amazon so that the shipping and warehouse part of the business gets spun off on its own might make sense, with established shipping companies able to compete.
Luddism never works - you can't eliminate automation and do things less efficiently just to arbitrarily provide work for people.