Are retail jobs going the way of farming and manufacturing?

Saw this article earlier. Ties in pretty good here.

Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class

Kodak employed 140,000 people. Instagram, 13. A digital visionary says the Web kills jobs, wealth -- even democracy.

http://bit.ly/17VPpsW

 

I have no opinion on the story.
So it's good to see what others say.

 

It's a compelling story, but it's framed incorrectly. To suggest that the internet "killed wealth" in that instance is ridiculous. The internet created wealth when it hastened Kodak's fall. Think of it this way: To get what "we" wanted re: photography took 140,000 people (actually more, of course, because Kodak wasn't the only player in the game). Now we only need a comparative handful of people to get what "we" want re: photography.

Let's take it down to an even micro-er level. I'm old enough to remember when you shot up a roll of film, then you mailed it off to a local/regional film processor, then you got your prints (and negatives) back in a couple of weeks. If you decided you wanted multiple prints of a particular shot, you then mailed the negative back to the processor and waited another couple of weeks. Now, if I have a snap for which I want multiple prints, I have dozens of places (within a 15-minute drive) that can have those prints waiting for me within an hour and at a relative pittance of a price. I have been made wealthier because I can now get what I want at a lower total cost* (the price of the prints PLUS ancillary costs (time, effort, etc.)), which also means I can get other things that, on the margin, I might not have bought before.

*And this is not even factoring in how much better the prints would look.

 

You're fucking old I bet you have a drawer full of unused flash cubes.

 

LOL ... you could even use flash cubes to make the point. I do remember using flash bulbs (and then cubes). By the time I got heavily into photography (photography was actually how I backed into journalism), semi-serious amateurs had moved on to electronic flashes. Soon thereafter, everybody used electronic flashes; they were on the cheapest cameras you could get. Because these flashes were durable, it's probably reasonable to assume that fewer people were involved in their production (as compared to the production of flash bulbs/cubes). But that's just another example of fewer people working at something being a sign that "we" as a whole had become wealthier.

 

doctorquant: