(shrug) We all have our priorities. I choose to shop at businesses that support my values, and if that means Whole Foods in addition to my local, non-chain health food stores, well, we live in an era of big businesses, and there’s something to be said for helping the better big businesses outcompete the worse ones.

Not all local independents are easy to link to online. And many have not worked out that service is important (one of mine closed for a week to move location and didn’t tell me that would delay an order I made with them). Or they don’t have the ability to get things quickly.

But you are right. More people should make the effort to support local business. Booksellers included.

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I do my best to support local businesses but think I could do more thanks for reminding me.

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@Jen Louden – I know what you mean. I have the same thing with Borders. I went to elementary school with the kids. I knew them. The original Borders was my favorite bookstore in the entire world.

So now it’s hard for me to remember that yeah, they sold out to freaking K-mart and they’re just a box like any other box. My gentleman friend has a fondness for lots of companies that I don’t like, because he’s from California and so for him they’re still “local”.

I think that’s pretty natural. When something feels comfortable and familiar, it’s hard to separate that out from the company’s actual policies and actions.

And again, as I said to @randomling, I don’t really expect people to feel as strongly about this as I do. For me it’s a big ideological thing and for most people I know, that’s just annoying. Oh well.

And for the “flat world” thing, I think you’re on to something. Local is only one facet of “living by values”. And it’s not living by values if you end up getting screwed over just because someone is your neighbor. So I think that’s a good point you’re making … that local by itself can end up being meaningless without all the other qualities we need something to give us …

@Peter – I appreciate that you want to keep us from making factual errors. That’s really sweet of you. Apparently, though, it’s actually *not* the work of a hacker. Or at least, Wired magazine, The New York Times, and even Amazon itself have all confirmed that it wasn’t a hack.

But even if it had been? Wouldn’t change the other 97% of my blog post and the actual point, which is that we as small business owners should be supporting fellow small business owners. I’ve been making this point consistently on the blog for ages and, likely as not, I’m going to keep making it. We do what we do.

Even if Amazon had been completely blameless in every way in this deranking thing, that still doesn’t change the way they intentionally tried to muscle every single POD company in the States out of business. It still doesn’t change my views on buying local and supporting independent in every way I can. It definitely doesn’t change my position on bullying, monopoly and all sorts of other things.

Next time I’ll try to be more clear though about how the principle outranks the example. I hope that will help things.

@randomling – It’s okay, sweetie. You don’t ever have to agree with me on this one (or about anything, really). And the truth is, that hardly anyone agrees with me on this one.

Even in Portland — a city I moved to specifically because it seemed more pro-local, pro-indie, pro-sustainable than anywhere else in the States — people are constantly surprised that I won’t say, spend money at a Walgreens or whatever the nearest box is.

And even the ones that totally get that… they still don’t get it when I won’t shop at Trader Joe’s.

So yes, I’m the freak. It’s been very hard to find anyone who has as strong feelings about this as I do.

This is just something that I am really passionate about, and that most people — even ones I’m friends with — don’t really get. Luckily, my gentleman friend and my brother are on board completely, so I don’t end up feeling completely crazy.

@willa –
“Oh, and Powell’s is no more a small local business than Amazon unless you happen to live near there.”

That’s partly right. And partly problematic.

In my case, of course, I do live near Powell’s. I walk there. You’re right that if you’re not in the Pacific Northwest, there are lots of other options, as people were kind enough to point out.

At the same time, I have to say that, despite its size, I can’t compare Powell’s to Amazon. For one thing, it’s still independent, not run by the stockholders. For another, I’ve met the owner and he’s a genuine “guy who likes to read”. The people who work there are all book people.

I’d also make the point that there’s a huge conceptual difference between businesses that expand within a city or in a concentrated way (like Powell’s and Zingermans and the other companies featured Bo Burlingham’s excellent book Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big) and the ones that expand boundlessly.

If you’re looking at it from the perspective of, say, my local indie feminist non-profit bookstore, of course, then yes, from that angle it’s harder to see the differences.

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