Wednesday September 22, 2021; 7:31 AM EDT
- During peak video store days, Hollywood Video built a handful of stores across our town. Then Blockbuster came and built a handful of stores around town. These were always located within a couple hundred feet of a Hollywood location.#
- Their general business philosophy seemed to be: We, not you, will survive.#
- Spoiler alert: Neither survived.#
- The same approach is now underway here in the drug store sector. Where's the nearest CVS? Most likely a few hundred feet from the nearest Walgreens. The two buildings will look like clones of each other. You can't miss 'em.#
- We, not you, will survive!#
- Maybe there are sectors where this is the best strategy available, I don't know. Hey, it's your life savings, franchise owner, go crazy! Hope you can sleep!#
- Not sure, but I think social media companies tend to operate similarly. To the extent that what they're offering the average user is a place to gather some friends together and communicate, what happens when they fold is that they fold up our little bundles of community with them. (Some people are working on that part of the problem.)#
- Related in spirit, I think, is this comment on generations of software developers trashing what went before.#