{"id":1182,"date":"2021-02-05T08:51:02","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T16:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2021-02-09T16:00:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T00:00:52","slug":"the-anti-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/02\/the-anti-amazon.html","title":{"rendered":"The Anti-Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Earlier this week on Twitter a contemporary asked, of those of us who came of age during (or before) the Web, what was our first job working with it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet has-text-align-center\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Webmaster for a computer bookstore in the Chicago suburbs in 1996. Books &amp; Bytes, domain was <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/n0ejgf1JOI\">https:\/\/t.co\/n0ejgf1JOI<\/a>. Needless to say, I should have picked up the domain when the store closed.<\/p>\u2014 Paul Weinstein (@pdweinstein) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pdweinstein\/status\/1357121732717367297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 4, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>For me, that first job was running the website for a computer bookstore in the Chicago suburbs (Naperville) called Books &amp; Bytes which I started maintaining around 1995\/6.<sup><a href=\"#sub1\">1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Books &amp; Bytes wasn&#8217;t the only business selling books online, Amazon had already been online for a couple of years by then. In fact, I can still recall customers suggesting to one of the business owners how we could be like Amazon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If only, right? After all, we already had the domain <em>bytes.com<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s the thing, it was never really in the cards. First off, the business partners, Cathy and Ross, were not interested in building a business empire. Prior to running Books &amp; Bytes, Cathy had been a programmer and Ross was still a full-time computer scientist at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anl.gov\">Argonne National<\/a> lab.<sup><a href=\"#sub2\">2<\/a><\/sup> To put it in current terms, this was their side hustle. And, as a full-time undergraduate in computer science at nearby <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elmhurst.edu\">Elmhurst<\/a>, it was my side hustle as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the real point is that while Book &amp; Bytes&#8217; online, mail order business would have seemed tailored made to challenge an early Amazon, the business was built on supplying institutional libraries with technical publications for their staff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Steven_Sinofsky\">Steven Sinofsky<\/a>, former President of Microsoft&#8217;s Windows Division, recalls when he started at Microsoft in the early 90s his new office bookshelf was &#8220;was pre-populated with, I later learned, standard-issue books for every new software design engineer hire.&#8221; that an internal email alias went to librarians for which &#8220;any topic to research or a request to send copies of articles or locate any book needed for work&#8221; and that &#8220;there was an actual library filling most of one arm of an X in building 4, where I spent a lot of time as well.&#8221;<sup><a href=\"#sub3\">3<\/a> <a href=\"#sub4\">4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the case of Books &amp; Bytes, it supplied the libraries of Motorola, Argonne and other large, highly specialized organizations located\/headquartered in Chicago and its suburbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If Books &amp; Bytes had simply translated their business model online, they would still no longer exist as a business today. Recall, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tim_Berners-Lee\">Tim Berners-Lee<\/a>&#8216;s vision for the Web included creating a place for global information sharing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a world where the popular publisher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oreilly.com\/online-learning\/teams.html\">O&#8217;Reilly now runs an online learning<\/a> platform, why would an engineer need a book? Why would a scientist need a print copy of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\">scientific journal when they are indexed and searchable online<\/a>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of which means <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/02\/02\/what-jeff-bezos-told-employees-about-stepping-down-as-ceo.html\">Jeff Bezos gets to retire as one of the richest people<\/a> in the world and I get to reminisce about a non-existent alternate universe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"659\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/bnb-659x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1185\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/bnb-659x1024.jpeg 659w, https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/bnb-193x300.jpeg 193w, https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/bnb-768x1194.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/bnb-988x1536.jpeg 988w, https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/bnb.jpeg 1144w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 659px) 100vw, 659px\" \/><figcaption><em>Books &amp; Bytes website circa 1996. The bookstore\u2019s domain name was&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/bytes.com\/\">h<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/19961019151223\/http:\/\/bytes.com\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"http:\/\/bytes.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ttp:\/\/bytes.com.<\/a> Needless to say, I wish could have picked up the domain when the store closed.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><sup><a name=\"sub1\">1<\/a><\/sup> I&#8217;m reminded of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/itsaunixsystem\/comments\/8gb8bm\/waynes_world_2_party_time_excellent\/\">scene in Wayne&#8217;s World 2 in which The UNIX Network Programing book <\/a>appears in. As fictional residents of neighboring Aurora, Garth and his girlfriend would have purchased their copies at Books &amp; Bytes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup><a name=\"sub2\">2<\/a><\/sup> Among other items, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ross_Overbeek\">Ross Overbeek<\/a> co-authored the book <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/assemblerlanguag00over\">Assembler language with ASSIST<\/a>, which was a common textbook used in various computer science programs, including mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup><a name=\"sub3\">3<\/a><\/sup> Hardcore Software, Steven Sinofsky, <a href=\"https:\/\/hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com\/p\/002-stevesi\">https:\/\/hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com\/p\/002-stevesi<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup><a name=\"sub4\">4<\/a><\/sup> In fact, Microsoft itself published technical publications under its own book label, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Microsoft_Press\">Microsoft Press<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week on Twitter a contemporary asked, of those of us who came of age during (or before) the Web, what was our first job working with it? Webmaster for a computer bookstore in the Chicago suburbs in 1996. Books &amp; Bytes, domain was https:\/\/t.co\/n0ejgf1JOI. Needless to say, I should have picked up the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117,118,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1182"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}