I have two choices in this town- a big box store or buy from Amazon. At least I don’t have to get in my car and drive 10 miles, park in the back of a parking lot, be bombarded by corporate propaganda in the form of visuals and audio, annoyed by salespeople who have been told to annoy me on purpose and finally get to the toilet seat, then stand on line for 20 minutes because they have one cashier and the guy at the front of the line wants to pay in a combination of a handwritten check, pennies and lottery tickets and won’t listen to the fact that they don’t accept checks, pennies or lottery tickets, then walk through the parking lot and drive back home if I buy from Amazon.
Other than that, what difference does it make? Either one horrible megacorporation gets my money or the other one does.
The fact is, those of us outside of larger cities, we don’t have a lot of options much of the time. There is no small business hardware store here. Not anymore.