Speaking of The New Yorker, (we were) I've made it to the bottom of my stack, the Aug 26 issue (with a "haha" cover featuring A roller coaster with Harris and Walz going up while Trump and Vance go down ... typical), and I encountered this thoughtful review by Louis Menand of two books about bookstores, subtitled "why do bookstores still exist?"

There's some good background and interesting thinking, but no clear answer.  I think it has to do with the same reason I prefer paper magazines to their digital counterparts:skimmability.  When you're seeking a specific book you go to Amazon and poof you buy it.  But when you're browsing for a book, how do you find one?

For that, nothing is better than a bookstore where you can easily scan the shelves, view covers, and if so minded, pick up and (gasp) sample the wares.  They’re “fun”.

Yeah, to some extent this contradicts The Long Tail (curiously, not mentioned in the review), but not really; the tail is there forfinding and ordering, at Amazon and elsewhere online, but browsing is still mostly done at the head, and the physical experience trumps virtual inventory.  In fact the curation - concentrating and filtering the vast space of all books to a much more manageable inventory - is part of the attraction.

Interestingly and as noted in the article, most independent bookstores call themselves  shops, and shopping is why they still exist. 

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