I feel this way about all sorts of shopping now. Online shopping of all sorts is very different from physical, in-store shopping. Online there is no tactile element at all, no sense of place and no ability to examine products or be surprised by what you find. I'm not saying it's necessarily better or worse, but I do think it results in buying very different things.

The thing I miss most is book shopping. Particularly for technical books. You can't buy them on any basis but recommendation now because it's not worth it for any book store to carry them.

I feel the same about certain things, like video or music stores. It was kind of an event in and of itself to get up and go somewhere, maybe with friends or significant others. You could potentially meet new people, discuss movies or music with a total stranger.

"Honey, what do you want to watch?"

Before Netflix: "let's go to the store, see what we could find. Let's stop on the way, get some ice cream." Invariably you also run into someone you know on the way.

After Netflix: "I dunno, just pick something."

I'm not saying I miss Blockbuster or I under-appreciate the convenience of Netflix. I just miss that tiny sense of adventure.

It's odd, but I feel almost exactly the opposite to you and GP - I hate shopping. I hate having to drive through traffic, I hate looking for something for even five minutes and not finding it, and I hate dealing with people (well, not all people, and hate may be too strong a word, but it follows the other two).

I am hardly ever surprised by what I order online - on the contrary, I know they have it, and I am almost always guaranteed to have good quality. How many brick and mortars have even an agregrate rating of their products listed right next to them? And no brick and mortar can compare with the selection you get online.

The tactile and "sense of place" seem very subjective, especially when you consider that 95% of your time with a product will be spent with it away from where you purchased it.

I'm all for buying locally to keep taxes going to local funding and employing people in my community, but if I go to a brick and mortar and can't find something once, in 5 minutes, I'll never buy it in a brick and mortar again.

When I know exactly what I want I hate shopping, but that's pretty rarely true for certain classes of things. When I buy books, videos, etc. I want to be surprised and be able to learn a bit more about it in place. But there is also the "I have it now" instead of "I have it whenever the delivery man can be assed to find my apartment and actually deliver it to me" factor even when I know what I want, and then it's just stores that make it hard for me to buy something that bother me.

> How many brick and mortars have even an agregrate rating of their products listed right next to them?

On this specific point, I have a phone. I don't need (or really want) the store to have this, I can have it any time I want to. When I'm surprised by something in a store, unless it's immediately obvious that it's something that I want and it doesn't suck, there's my phone to tell me if it's a sham.

That said, I went out of my way to point out that I don't think it's better, just different. So yes, it is subjective.

I'm the same way. Money is scarce. I need to know what I buy is going to work for me, and I can't do that with the 1-3 options at the store.

In Australia video rental stores are still relatively popular, and people generally cite reasons similar to those you articulate

Our Internet is also piss-poor, so streaming generally is not an option.

I'm in Adelaide and the two stores near me have disappeared and maybe one person that I know out of dozens and dozens would ever hire a DVD.

GP comment does resonate with me though; it's kind of sad that we've lost that. It's likely caused by having a single browsing device/screen.

I just data horde as I got sick of how much wasn't available or would just disappear at the whim of an executive.

Hey did you plan on watching Galactica? Sike!