Asklemmy

43965 readers

1885 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

198

In the US, did Amazon kill the mall, is everyone too broke, or a combination of other factors? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 4 months ago by return2ozma to c/[email protected]

105 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I watch a lot of Dead Mall videos on YouTube and I wanted to see what everyone's thoughts are on why there's so many dead malls now.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Malls were just a way to privatize mainstreet and allow the ownership class of capitalists to extract more money from a local economy through large chain stores and to give them private control over what used to be public space.

Now the middle class is worth a fraction of what it used to be, their purpose has dissolved.

People use Amazon instead of the mall because they can still afford the Temu-level garbage Amazon sells.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

People use Amazon instead of the mall because they can still afford the Temu-level garbage Amazon sells.

I mean a few reasons.

Pricing is better on Amazon vs mall. I can get a Gangsta Luffy T-shirt at $12 vs $20 at hot topic
Inventory is significantly bigger. Outside of clothes, I can't imagine not finding the exact online version and compare
Malls are kinda ugly now. Many are indoor and just wall to wall commercialism.
People suck. Naked dude stealing stop signs and angry Karen about the take a dump on the escalator.
Driving vs ship to door.
Both have temu-level garbage, but it's cheaper on Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Both have temu-level garbage, but it's cheaper on Amazon.

Currently, as they are dying today, yes.

This is not how malls have traditionally worked.

In the past, malls provided a plug-and-play way for national chain retail to offer premium, private-labeled goods that allowed them to extract money away from a community's locally owned stores found on main street.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Indoor is good though. Floating around the mall is a good activity for shit weather days

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago

How can I turn this into the class struggle?