While we can lament the decline of the role of the LHS in today's train culture, what's happening is simply a microcosim of American culture. Always has been and how it will be - survival of the fittest via adaptation or suffer extinction. It's that way in both the natural and business worlds.
The days of mom and pop stores have long ended except for those who adapted to the way businesses work today. The rise of the internet has changed commerce forever. Like the proverbial genie that was left out of the lamp without thought to the consequence involved, things will never be the same. Society will never return to preinternet times. We toy train hobbyists as well as the LHS scene hobby must either go with it marching onward or face extinction wallowing in selfpity.
Many of today's large, successful internet dealers were once LHS who envisioned the future and went to mail order sales and when the internet came along jumped on that new opportunity and are currently riding its prosperity as far as it will take them while those LHS unable to establish a niche for themselves or recognize and heed future trends have been left along the wayside outside of what the majority of consumers demand - LOWEST POSSIBLE IMMEDIATE PRICES IRREGARDLESS OF FUTURE CONSEQUENCES - LIVE FOR TODAY AND WORRY ABOUT TOMORROW WHEN IT GETS HERE! Well folks, it appears as if that "tomorrow" is rapidly approaching and depending on how you view it we're either reaping or suffering its consequences.
Even bigbox stores who either failed to or were slow hitching onto the internet way have fallen into history. Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, Borders Books, Circuit City, radio stations, daily newspapers, many publishing firms and even the once venerable Time Magazine with the list growing daily as evidenced by Best Buy and others who've been trying valiantly to hang on in what's becoming an ever increasing losing battle.
So while we can lament the passing of a former way of life, embrace the future of internet buying and let no one make you feel guilty about sharing blame for losing the way we've bought our toy trains in the past.
