What isn't a "store"?

Pretty much like everything we're familiar with from pre-digital days, we assume that a store is a physical space that someone can walk into, purchase something, and walk out of again. But for at least a generation we've learned to relate to Amazon.com, which is basically a vast web site, as a store. And there's no reason why we shouldn't. It may not be a physical entity, but we enter it, purchase something, and leave. People who establish web sites to sell their arts or crafts do so in "stores". A Buzzfeed page from about a year and a half ago, for instance, offers 31 Amazing Online Stores You’ve Never Heard Of, and each of these is basically a web site, albeit a web site that wants to sell something.

Similarly, we're comfortable referring to the web as a vast library, even if before the web we assumed that libraries had opening and closing hours, and they expected us to return the books we checked out. But in a society where it seems that shopping is a defining aspect of our existence, it makes sense that everything is a store.



Go to: The tailless wooly internet behemoth.