And the reality was that, as information become more widely available, the local options really weren't very good. They had their limited inventory to move. I frequented various non-big city camera stores over the years and, with hindsight, they were what I had at the time but, other than as a nostalgic small town thing, I have trouble really missing them on any rational basis.

There can be value to local merchants. But it's harder to make the case for local distributors of mainstream manufactured equipment.