Can Half Price Books survive? Is it already dead?

Last week, with both the main library in the county where I live and the smaller one where I work(ed before mainly remotely) shuttered, I started thinking about a Texas institution — Half Price Books.

A fair amount of people in states to the west know about it, too, but its home and origins are here. Like HEB Grocery, it's one of Texas' better institutions.

If it lives much longer.

Googling to see if it has a Denton location, the top hit was from Publishers Weekly announcing three-quarters of its staff were laid off or furloughed, as of earlier last Thursday. Linked within that was a piece from two weeks earlier announcing all stores had closed to the public. That got it the dubious honor of largest bookstore chain to close in the face of the coronavirus.

Its offers of curbside pickup and more? Sounds like little more than PR, especially since it's talking about trying to hold on to its leases, which means ... it can't pay those leases right now.

That, in turn, makes me wonder how thin its ice was before this. The original store closures announcement said it would only be until March 31. I suspect the company knew it likely wouldn't stay open after that.

So? The idea of reopening? I doubt it. I sadly, and seriously, doubt it.

I mean, it's in a Catch-22. It's selling off all its old stock. But, if the stores are all closed, it isn't getting any new stuff from patrons. It may still be getting remaindered stuff from first-run bookstores, but that's not that much. If you went to the typical HBP, 80 percent of its stuff was trade-ins by customers, if not more. No more than 20 percent, if that much, was remaindered. The percentage was higher on CDs and DVDs, but even there, I'm guessing more than half was still trade-ins.

So, it's time to reminisce.

I was last at the flagship on Northwest Highway what, last fall? In my brief return to Marlin two years ago, I visited a newish semi-outlet location in Waco. I often went to the one in Cedar Hill when I lived in the Best Southwest a decade-plus ago. Took pix of their Banned Books Week display one year for my newspaper.

I have many memories from multiple locations, in other words.

One of them was HPB as a way of expanding my musical world. I bought many nature sounds CDs there, but also a number of both traditional, or classical, and modern world music albums. Stuff like Pakistani bagpipes and Japanese koto music. Especially after the CD Warehouse place on Greenville just north of Lovers closed years ago, it was the one place for me to still look for music.

So, what happened?

The remaindered and other CDs? YouTube probably hurt that. The flagship likely did a lot of vintage vinyl sales, but I think that fad has peaked again. And, even though often cheaper than the Yellow Bezos Bus on used books, that may have had a ding.

That said, we'll probably never really know. It's family owned, and not publicly traded. So, other mistakes or whatever that may be part of the story probably won't come to light.

And, no, I don't expect it to reopen. Not in a bricks-and-mortar sense.

(Update: I was told on Twitter that HBP wouldn't go into Denton because it wouldn't compete with Recycled Books. I asked in what sense that "won't compete" was being used. If it was simply not to battle it out with another bookstore, I understand that. If it was the idea that HBP woudn't be competitive? Not true. I've been in Recycled Books. No way I'd pay their prices.)

Facebook, Google, Apple and the'censorship' of Alex Jones

Glenn Greenwald is leading the worry brigade among some libertarians and semi-libertarians about letting the trio above ban Alex Jones from their sites.

To which, although I've noted problems with the way Popehat swings his particular version of semi-absolutism on the First Amendment, there's his response:

It's ridiculous to think we can find alternatives to big online media gatekeepers like Yahoo, Geocities, and AOL.

— QHatSecretMessages (@Popehat) August 7, 2018

Then there's my response:

Re FB/Google/Apple & Alex Jones We worried about AOL and Yahoo 15 years ago. If FB/Ggl/Appl become more powerful, they can be further regulated. BUT! libertarians of various stripes might not like that. So, while we're at it, we can junk both Citizens United and Buckley v Valero.

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) August 7, 2018

And, with that, I'm targeting Glenn, who's worried about Citizens United but not nearly enough to call for its repeal, and doesn't even care about Buckley.

That's called petard-hoisting, Glenn. (Oh, Ken, I'll put that on you at some point. Unless you actually like people yelling fire in a crowded theater, you're not a 1A absolutist, either.)

Beyond THAT, Infowars is hoist by its own petard:

You can't make this up. InfoWars' own terms of service say: "You are a guest here. It is not censorship if you violate the rules and your post is deleted. All civilizations have rules and if you violate them you can expect to be ostracized from the tribe." (h/t @alexkasprak) pic.twitter.com/8hy8NyLN0H

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) August 7, 2018

But, let's move onward.

I don't need Reason to tell me (thus, no link, Ken) that while the trio can ban Jones and Infowars, the grounds are wishy-washy.

But, neither you nor Reason will say, contra your tweet, that late-stage capitalism is involved.

These folks (supposedly, Apple hasn't banned Jones on all platforms yet, anyway), probably saw some small threat of "boycott" and figured that would lose more money than gaining any money from Alex and his neo-nutbar fellow travelers.

As "they" say, Effbook is a "mature platform" in the US. Ditto for YouTube and various Apple sites.

On the third hand, is this:

Mark Zuckerberg told the Senate that @Facebook has a responsibility to its users as a news curator.

Today, Facebook removed the video I posted about the US-backed bombing of Hodeidah, #Yemen, which contained graphic footage of its aftermath.

Another corp. sanitizing news. pic.twitter.com/d5WTL70sVw

— Walker Bragman (@WalkerBragman) August 3, 2018

Facebook ultimately is a late-stage capitalist platform. But that's what drove Citizens United, too, Glenn. So, you're kind of petard-hoist.

To summarize, libertarian types risk hoisting on one of several petards.

One is when saying that Facebook (synecdoche for the group) is doing it wrong. You admit it has the power to do this. Thanks, that's all we need there.

Two is admitting Facebook has gotten too big to be allowed to do this on its own. You're admitting it's a public utility or similar, and that it needs government regulation or similar. Well, on the second half of that sentence, you lost your libertarian card if, like Ted Cruz seemingly, you think it needs to be regulated. If you reject that fork, but accept the first clause, then let's bounce hypotheticals off your head as to how close to First Amendment absolutism you want to go before you might step in. The Weekly Standard goes exactly there by asking if you want porn on social media.

Three is more muddled. It's having the feeling that Facebook's actions are problematic but not being sure what else to do next. If you're an allegedly rigorous-thinking libertarian, that's a problem there.

Beyond that, as Alex Madrigal notes (and others have observed on Twitter) the ban is about as leaky as most newspapers' online paywalls. (It's kind of sad that's my reference, but it's a perfect comparison.) That too is presumably deliberate, and late-stage capitalistic. A "ban" that's more of a shadow ban to appease some people. Hell, Facebook probably even ran an algorithm about just how much "banning" to do.

Google? It just lets Jones keep running on Google+, showing how little it now values that site. Plus, none of these people have banned Jones' British flunky, Paul Watson.

Final note? RationalWiki has a great point about Jones. If he really is blowing the cover of the New World Order time after time, why is he still alive? Why hasn't he been assassinated?

Google censorship hits US

Not just in China does Google wield a strong fist.

Here in this U.S., apparently you can't be anti-Zionist on YouTube.

Funny and semi-vicious campaign ads: effective?

I suspect that YouTube type video political campaign ads, like the ones mentioned in this story, deliberately8 designed to "go viral," may get a lot of pass-around on YouTube, but mainly "preach to the masses" in the end and aren't actually that effective.

Obama DOES support Prop. 8

Contrary to the San Francisco Chronicle’s political blog, even if Obama cut a spot for “No on 8,” he still favors Prop. 8 because he opposes gay marriage.

And THAT is why he’s not asking “Yes on 8” to stop using his likeness.

Just another example of political petard-hoisting.

He knows that if he pushed on “Yes on 8” using his mug, it would be YouTube-mining for clips of him expressing his opposition to gay marriage.

Kodak invents YouTube-ready camcorder

At $180 and small size, Kodak may have the video equivalent of a start-up point-and-shoot digital camera.

Local TV going the way of the newspaper?

It would seem so, given the ad drops, viewer drops and now, the job-slashing, that’s hitting local network affiliate stations.

Outside of Baltimore, CBS is seeing cuts at network-owned affiliate stations in New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. The story says no order came out of HQ for this, but did note these were allegedly low-performing stations. CBS as a company lost 14.6 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Contrary to the newspaper article, though, it’s more than fragmenting of the market, or audience. And, yes, I agree that part of this is recession-driven.

It’s more than just the “traditional” Internet, of newspaper and TV station websites, supplemented by the Yahoos and Google News of the world.

Instead, just as blogging provided an outlet for some sort of “print” citizen journalism, now YouTube has done the same for video citizen journalism.

In other words, TV is facing the same future that hit newspapers a decade ago.

Newspapers have adapted, in many cities, by cutting staff writers and hiring more freelancers. In general assignment work, that’s OK. But, as The Dallas Morning News has shown here, when you have freelancers doing things like science journalism, it backfires.

Of course, TV does less in-depth stuff like that. You could keep staff reporters and videographers for investigative work, and start farming out the rest. The flip side of that is, TV stations could “bureau” their news by suburban areas, in the larger TV markets.

It’s coming, in some way, shape or form.

Beyond the world of local news, entertainment is not just going to cable channels. YouTube has more and more of that to offer, too.

And, if this story about Internet 3.0, Hypernet, or whatever you want to call it is true, we’ll see a lot more people leaving the traditional boob tube turned off.

Does God do bloopers?

Or, at least, do people’s idea of God do bloopers? Find out at GodTube.

YouTube/Google censors atheist?

So much for Google’s legendary open-mindedness. Is Google actually afraid of something?