Or perhaps because the people who open non-chain bookstores are avid readers, often obsessed with helping out a community, and they love what they do, despite the fact that it's not exactly an easy business?

I know we're cool and new-wave but it's one thing to say Amazon's good. It's another to question why somebody would want to help out a business model that's never been lucrative, whose practitioners more often than not do it for the joy of helping people find a good read.