And personally, three Borders near me have or are in the process of closing. I have enjoyed them for years. I own an iPad and buy books electronically, but I also still buy print books and I also buy cafe drinks at bookstores too, so I am still a purchaser of goods in some manner. All the Barnes & Nobles by me are open, so I don't know what that says. And they sell their own e-reader. I have a B&N membership and buy coffee drinks there too. and print books there too.
I can tell you that the battles between those that think we should preserve the local bookstore and hate
Amazon (and other online book sellers) and those that love buying books online and think the bookstore's time has passed is amazingly hateful. The Apple/PC battles are nothing in comparison.
I know that my favorite bookstore is a pain to get to and it is more costly to shop there than to go online. They buy rare books, but I get a better price selling it online. We have a wonderful rare book dealer in Salt Lake, but he pays very little compared to what I can get online.
Mr. Jackson's comments were not well considered because they fail to consider history and how technology affects us all in some way or another.
I recall the giant machine we invented to manufacture PCMCIA modems and NIC Cards. It took PC Boards from the SMT ovens, routed the boards, put the parts together, added frames, and the top/bottom covers. The modems went into an oven to heat the adhesive and a cold chamber to set the glue.
We called it the rework machine because that is what it produced. So we stopped using most sections of the machine and hired new people to do the machine's job.
Even though we tried to replace as many workers as possible through clever technology, the bottom line was, we hired more people because volume increased and some jobs cant be done by machine.
Bob