ban internet shopping?

[Amorphos]

everything has a benefit and a deficit, the internet is no exception. our town centres are dying, with no woolworths any more and with many other shops and pubs closing, there is hardly any reason to go into town.

internet shopping is great for specialists but not for non specialists. allow me to take it to extremes to draw a comparative; imagine a society that is entirely composed of an internet marketplace, factories of packers and van drivers, how successful would that society be? i don’t think it would produce a very affluent society, more one with millions of low wage workers and even more with no work at all.

i would like to see music banned from being sold on the internet, you can get your i-pods and mp3 players loaded up with songs at your local ‘woolworths’! sure music is cheaper on the net, but cheapness is comparative, if we are all on lower incomes or out of work, that cheap becomes very expensive.

i say ban internet selling then all we need to do is get rid of all the societal parasites creaming the money we earn off everything we buy, then we can get britain/the world working again and spread the wealth fairly.

thoughs?

[Kiljan Arslan]

why not just put a five percent tax on all internet purchases?

[Kiljan Arslan]

That wouldn't solve his problem, as that wouldn't create jobs.
Or do you mean put 5% extra on internet shopping exclusively? I'm pretty sure the shops would only boost prices 5%.

exclusivley for the internet.

[Amorphos]

why not just put a five percent tax on all internet purchases?

good way to get tax revenue without ‘employing’ people. + the differences are often far greater than that.

You obviously don’t live in a town where the closest things you get to a gaming store is the local kiosk and a toy store.

i live in a small village, we have buses and i have a car ~ it is/was nice to go into town and have a look around. there can be exceptions, you could order things of the net still but via a given store.

OP, the kind of apocalyptic scenario you put out isn’t going to happen. At least with online music services, there’s no evidence to suggest the music industry is failing because of it.

the music industry may not be [?] but retailer obviously are, we need to think of the whole thing as a business not just individual parts.
you would go to buy from a store if you had no other option.

Also, how are we “societal parasites”? We’re paying just like everyone else.

ha, that was a snipe at bosses and entrepreneurs etc.

I would be more concerned on huge corporations eating anything small in their way, than internet shopping.

good point! why not both?

[Ragabash]

good point! why not both?

How I see it, is that internet itself is just one market to sell goods, just like any; no difference there in my opinion. Internet alone, in fact, might be our best market to ensure that large corporations cannot artificially take over prices and markets.

That workers and customers and up being screwed, one way or another, directly or indirectly is not fault of internet but inheritely flawed market system; that is based solely on profit, instead of trying to incorporate corporations and business to the improvement of our socio-economical environment.

[Amorphos]

And there lies where the problem comes from. What has killed off the high street shops is not the internet, rather the super-giant megastores who corner the supplier and market in such a way that the small shopkeeper cannot compete even the supplier.

good point, but why cast one against the other, is it not better to look at every aspect of the problem? megastores like e.g. tesco should only be allowed to sell food, we need to have as many outlets as possible ~ small is good! decentralisation is the way forwards. i watched dave gorman go across america only using shops and hotels which were non corporate, it was great, all the different and unique places and people he met really gave a feel for what old america was about. we should get rid of all the macs etc out there and allow small business and scial life to flourish!

As people got wheels these things became like cigarettes are now, unacceptable on the hardworn streets with all their fumes.

many centres are pedestrianised, thats the way to go. there will come a time when cars don’t produce fumes ~ there will be no oil left.

Perhaps the answer might well be to reintroduce resale price maintenance so that all goods of whatever brand that brand carries the same price no matter where you buy.

maybe, although it would have to be regional to some degree.

___________________________________

hang on just answering the rest...

[Ishoss]

i live in a small village, we have buses and i have a car ~ it is/was nice to go into town and have a look around. there can be exceptions, you could order things of the net still but via a given store.

This could work a place like the US, were people live fairly centralised. But when I mean small town, I don't mean 20,000 persons living in the vicinity of another town with 100,000 persons. I mean a place where 5,000 people live fairly dispersed and the closest town is 30 minutes away in which you have to cross a fjord (take a ferry) and the population of that town is ca. 3,000. The closest town with a population of 20,000 is 1.5 hours away and taking a bus is practically out of the question.

The closest dedicated gameshop is 1.5 hours away, I am not interested in driving 1.5 hours every time I want to buy something new. Neither am I interested in being penalized (by higher taxes) for living far away from the closest gameshop.

The game retailers in our town don't care about games at all. I once asked him if he (the owner of the toy store) could order a game, but he replied that he only took games reccomended by VG (national newspaper) which means that we only get mostly crap games into town. He's not a very good businessman...

[AqD]

why not just put a five percent tax on all internet purchases?

define "all internet purchases"?


Let's say I open a website on internet, I tell customers to send money to my bank account and then I mail products to their house. Now, how can you tax me? (and who can tax me?) You don't even know who I'm!

i say ban internet selling then all we need to do is get rid of all the societal parasites creaming the money we earn off everything we buy, then we can get britain/the world working again and spread the wealth fairly.

thoughs?

Banning these kinds of things is just ridiculous. People should STOP trying to interfere with others, and the government should STOP trying to ban anything based on their laughable "right" and "wrong".

[Ishoss]

You obviously don't live in a town where the closest things you get to a gaming store is the local kiosk and a toy store.

The most unpopular game I've ever picked up in either is Med II. Yeah. :S
The rest is either ordered or bought 2 hours away...

why not just put a five percent tax on all internet purchases?

That wouldn't solve his problem, as that wouldn't create jobs.
Or do you mean put 5% extra on internet shopping exclusively? I'm pretty sure the shops would only boost prices 5%.

[Markas]

I walked through my Town Centre last week and saw the local Woolies empty, like a burned-out hulk of a proud ship I once served on. It really upset me, it was like a part of my childhood had been kicked. Even more so than after the recent Transformers movie.

[D.B. Cooper]

OP, the kind of apocalyptic scenario you put out isn't going to happen. At least with online music services, there's no evidence to suggest the music industry is failing because of it. If it's easier to buy the same song from the same company online, why would the consumer go out to the store to buy it? Maybe this is a trend we should be adapting to instead of fighting against it. Internet shopping is more convenient and there's more choice in what you want to buy. I'm all for it.

Also, how are we "societal parasites"? We're paying just like everyone else.

[Ragabash]

I would be more concerned about huge corporations eating anything smaller in their way, than internet shopping. It's not like cities are dying anyway, it's just that people can now access goods from their homes. Internet has also proven to pull prices down on many items, that were for a long time artifically high in retail.

[basics]

Quetzalcoatl,

I must admit I like to shop where there is service and by that I mean another human being actually there in front of me hopefully ready to offer even answer advice and queries I may have. But then few and far are those types of places anymore.

I have been in shops where the assistant, phone glued to her ear, parcelled the goods and charged me with hardly a word but for the price. So is it really any wonder that others get as much satisfaction in dealing with a machine?

Indeed some of these machines do it quicker than many that stand behind a counter. From the moment they arrive at work the sole conversation can be just how quickly they can get out of the place and it is not just systematic to shops. Every industry has much the same problem.

[Helm]

Thing is high street shops often charge far more things than what they can be bought for online, so they bring it on themselves.

[Amorphos]

Thing is high street shops often charge far more things than what they can be bought for online, so they bring it on themselves.

they employ people! those people go and buy stuff too, that is how you get your wages! like this, we will bring unemployment to ourselves.

[Kiljan Arslan]

a five percent tax would increase prices though.

[Amorphos]

a five percent tax would increase prices though.

yes, but it would just give more money to politicians who already waste our money, the civil services are a bloated mess. it is better to give money to the people, to create jobs etc

[Kiljan Arslan]

yes, but it would just give more money to politicians who already waste our money, the civil services are a bloated mess. it is better to give money to the people, to create jobs etc

well then use the tax to do that, but the increace in price would be to promote the buying of local goods.

[Musthavename]

i would like to see music banned from being sold on the internet, you can get your i-pods and mp3 players loaded up with songs at your local ‘woolworths’! sure music is cheaper on the net, but cheapness is comparative, if we are all on lower incomes or out of work, that cheap becomes very expensive.

The CDs I like arn't generally sold in shops, and when they are, they're a rip-off. One recently I couldn't even find the CD online and downloaded it instead. What do you propose I do?

Besides, high street shopping will never die completely. Sometimes you want to pick something up yourself. Likewise, if you order online, you've got to wait to have it delivered, something sometimes you don't want.

However, on a vaguely similar issue I am a tad sypmathetic, as I would like to see a minimum price for alcohol, as supermarkets are destroying pubs, who simply cannot compete. I've seen my local shut within a month of my 18th. Pubs I do go to are virtually empty.

[Amorphos]

The CDs I like arn’t generally sold in shops, and when they are, they’re a rip-off. One recently I couldn’t even find the CD online and downloaded it instead. What do you propose I do?

i agree, i was looking at cd’s recently and even ones from the 70’s were well overpriced, but i wouldn’t mind that if the money was going towards jobs and not to fat bosses. also i agree that it is difficult to find what you want, so how about shops have on-line stores purely for ordering, you then go to the shop and pick it up. or specialist items can be brought on-line, that is where it is beneficial. as i said in the op everything has a benefit and a deficit, business all all about finding a balance.

Besides, high street shopping will never die completely. Sometimes you want to pick something up yourself. Likewise, if you order online, you’ve got to wait to have it delivered, something sometimes you don’t want.

it is dying! we have a game shop locally, how long before games are all downloaded? some shops will survive for sure, what we need is to create more jobs and rebuild our town centres ~ for social purposes if nothing else.

indeed we should lower the taxes on booze and permit smoking [have air conditioning] in pubs too as that area of our social life is also dying. it is not only about jobs but about life!