Thomas Piketty's Capital: Live Blog IIII

Back to the beginning. That was slightly embarrassing. But like the idea behind this says:

We live tweet events so why don't we live blog our books? They may last longer than a Premier League match or election night special, but we read them continuously and their covers bound a discrete event. During their course our support veers between characters or new facts prompt us to change intellectual direction. They ebb and flow like all tweet worthy events.

Turns out this is not a subway book. The physical heft was obviously a challenge. But reading in snippets, nodding off in the early morning, and stopping mid-page at my station wasn't working out. I didn't remember much of the previous foray and so Piketty's patient explanation of ideas never found root in the sand of my mind.

So it's home reading for this. Where I can control my environment (to some degree) and regulate properly the cadence of reading. Because it's too good a book to leave publicly displayed on my shelf as an unread vanity book.

I mean, I have my pride.

lazy thinking. and you can't own customers.

At the book office today, I read this headline:

New Amazon Low: Trying to Steal Customers Outside Indie Store

I've no love for Amazon and, yes, they play hard. But let's avoid assumptions and sloppy thinking (except my own).

So, Amazon set up a marketing kiosk outside a university bookstore. Maybe campus bookstores are different in America, but I wouldn't call them indies and the virtuous hardships that label often implies. A fairly captive audience, mark-ups on academic titles, and high margin paraphernalia with the school logo.

But my bigger problem is the phrase "steal customers". You can't steal customers. They aren't serfs. They aren't indentured purchasers. You can compete for customers. You can encourage them to shop with you. But, they're free. In the market.

Once you start feeling entitled to your customers, it's unsurprising you complain about the competition instead of taking the fight to them.