I think I was more concerned with the tone of your post; the impression it gave me was that you're a misanthrope. Which is fine, by all means misanthrope away all you want, but I'm not going to keep subjecting myself to it.
You've written other posts (too many to list; I would actually have to check your archives to refresh my memory, which would be painful) where I've questioned your motives or raised an eyebrow or two. Who cares, though; I write that way often enough myself. Now I'm just getting a better taste of what it's like to be the reader instead of the writer of such things (and I am sort of jumping up and down in pain from it, but hey, don't mind me).
This in particular almost sent me rocketing out of my chair:
If all the people who offered support in comments had ever come in before they heard of the shop's troubles, they wouldn't be in trouble. All these people coming in now aren't true book lovers, or they'd have been there all along. And who do you think you are, asking them about their business plan and how you can be sure they wouldn't be asking for donations again in a few months?
You know, forgetting that they run a business, not a charity or a church or a fucking community rec center, and that nobody owes them a goddamn thing - certainly not to be rewarded with free money for their incompetence, no questions asked.
It hits close to home for me because while I realize you're talking about brick and mortar businesses I'm currently supporting an online-only business which is crowd-sourcing the next version of itself in much the same fashion (in a sort of "prove to us you think our vision is worth it" manner vs. a "here we are asking for a hand up not a hand-out" manner). You're right; this is about semantics but the difference is I don't care how a business asks for our help as long as I support the business. To you that's a big deal, how they ask, why they're asking, that they get offended or don't have a proper answer if you ask them where they'll be three months from now (asking for money again? That's insulting and of course they get offended by the question for the lack of faith it shows; I would get offended by it, too).
I would've also been more at peace with the following if you'd done some research on it...
[...] I haven't seen a single bookshop saved by begging the community to keep their unrealistic dreams afloat, no matter how much they appeal to the community to 'show your support' and 'show us you value our business' (that's the customer's line, folks!), because to the community, that feels like business owner abdicating responsibility and shifting it to the customer.
I mean, I know you haven't seen it. My point is, does any research exist on the matter that says how often bookstores in particular fail or succeed after asking for community help/donations/hands up not hand outs? And if you don't know the answer to that question then what does it matter what just one person (you) has 'seen'? If you're going to offer that up as a fact, it's not my job to make sure it is, it's yours to check any existing statistics that support your argument before you write the post. Because you didn't perform due diligence (or share the results of any due diligence you performed) I have no idea if what you said is true or not but now the curiosity is killing me, which is not a good state to leave a passive reader of your post in.
no subject
You've written other posts (too many to list; I would actually have to check your archives to refresh my memory, which would be painful) where I've questioned your motives or raised an eyebrow or two. Who cares, though; I write that way often enough myself. Now I'm just getting a better taste of what it's like to be the reader instead of the writer of such things (and I am sort of jumping up and down in pain from it, but hey, don't mind me).
This in particular almost sent me rocketing out of my chair:
If all the people who offered support in comments had ever come in before they heard of the shop's troubles, they wouldn't be in trouble. All these people coming in now aren't true book lovers, or they'd have been there all along. And who do you think you are, asking them about their business plan and how you can be sure they wouldn't be asking for donations again in a few months?
You know, forgetting that they run a business, not a charity or a church or a fucking community rec center, and that nobody owes them a goddamn thing - certainly not to be rewarded with free money for their incompetence, no questions asked.
It hits close to home for me because while I realize you're talking about brick and mortar businesses I'm currently supporting an online-only business which is crowd-sourcing the next version of itself in much the same fashion (in a sort of "prove to us you think our vision is worth it" manner vs. a "here we are asking for a hand up not a hand-out" manner). You're right; this is about semantics but the difference is I don't care how a business asks for our help as long as I support the business. To you that's a big deal, how they ask, why they're asking, that they get offended or don't have a proper answer if you ask them where they'll be three months from now (asking for money again? That's insulting and of course they get offended by the question for the lack of faith it shows; I would get offended by it, too).
I would've also been more at peace with the following if you'd done some research on it...
[...] I haven't seen a single bookshop saved by begging the community to keep their unrealistic dreams afloat, no matter how much they appeal to the community to 'show your support' and 'show us you value our business' (that's the customer's line, folks!), because to the community, that feels like business owner abdicating responsibility and shifting it to the customer.
I mean, I know you haven't seen it. My point is, does any research exist on the matter that says how often bookstores in particular fail or succeed after asking for community help/donations/hands up not hand outs? And if you don't know the answer to that question then what does it matter what just one person (you) has 'seen'? If you're going to offer that up as a fact, it's not my job to make sure it is, it's yours to check any existing statistics that support your argument before you write the post. Because you didn't perform due diligence (or share the results of any due diligence you performed) I have no idea if what you said is true or not but now the curiosity is killing me, which is not a good state to leave a passive reader of your post in.