Today I observed a discussed on Facebook prompted by one of my friends on whether or not books should be delivered to Tanzanians' doorsteps.
On one hand, my friend and his supporters (myself included) contended that not all books can be delivered to one's doorstep given scarcity, and following this logic, the people who will come to view a book at a store in person are most deserving of the purchase.
On the other hand, people argued that we live in an age where home delivery is a premium service, and only those service providers who will deliver will survive. The rest, those who demand a customer to come to them, will lose out in the long run.
OK, so let's assume that every product and service was brought home to you. In this state of affairs, you need to be prepared to make wise choices, otherwise one of two things will happen, assuming that our need for stuff is never satiated: Either you will run out of money and into debt, or you will have too much shit lying around at home to make sense of.
Also, let's think about books compared to other products for a second. Books are a learning resource. Their returns can be quite larger (or smaller in that respect) than the money they are exchanged for. They are also many, many book titles out there, on many, many topics. So the opportunity cost of having the exact book you want delivered to your doorstep is the cost of going to the bookstore and having to browse through other titles similar to the book you want.
This is an opportunity cost worth taking up, rather than foregoing. Sure, this is my point of view, but I get where my friend comes from. Book stores ought to do anything they can to promote more people coming through them, otherwise I think we might end up with too many book lovers in debt because they ordered too much of stuff they didn't need.
On one hand, my friend and his supporters (myself included) contended that not all books can be delivered to one's doorstep given scarcity, and following this logic, the people who will come to view a book at a store in person are most deserving of the purchase.
On the other hand, people argued that we live in an age where home delivery is a premium service, and only those service providers who will deliver will survive. The rest, those who demand a customer to come to them, will lose out in the long run.
OK, so let's assume that every product and service was brought home to you. In this state of affairs, you need to be prepared to make wise choices, otherwise one of two things will happen, assuming that our need for stuff is never satiated: Either you will run out of money and into debt, or you will have too much shit lying around at home to make sense of.
Also, let's think about books compared to other products for a second. Books are a learning resource. Their returns can be quite larger (or smaller in that respect) than the money they are exchanged for. They are also many, many book titles out there, on many, many topics. So the opportunity cost of having the exact book you want delivered to your doorstep is the cost of going to the bookstore and having to browse through other titles similar to the book you want.
This is an opportunity cost worth taking up, rather than foregoing. Sure, this is my point of view, but I get where my friend comes from. Book stores ought to do anything they can to promote more people coming through them, otherwise I think we might end up with too many book lovers in debt because they ordered too much of stuff they didn't need.
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