From everywhere you hear the whining and complaints of local points of sale that the internet is taking away their business foundation. Whenever I buy a new device, I try to countervail this effect by going to my local shop to buy it there instead of doing the couch potato buying it over the internet. However 9 out of 10 times I get disappointed by them not having what I want in stock. If I wanted to order it to get it later, I had ordered it online in the first place :(
This morning I went to a local shop to buy a new communications device with a contract -- these point of sales get quite a nice provision when people buy contracts. To my surprise, they had the device I wanted in stock and I felt growing excitement. Then I grabbed a piece of paper showing them a special employee rebate code I got from another employee and guess what... "oh, with these kinds of rebates devices can only be ordered at the support hotline"... WTF?
With this policy, points of sale will die -- it's inevitable. They are digging their own grave and I have no more symphathy.