Conventional brick and mortar retail is extremely expensive to maintain. It has less to do with Amazon specifically, and more to do with the rise of online retail & direct to consumer business models more generally. Don’t get me wrong, Amazon was a huge pioneer in that area, but it would have happened one way or another.

This was fantastic information. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my post, I sincerely appreciate it.

I actually came from a previous retail background as well, and built a small business from 1 location making $1.5 million annually to four locations making $20 million annually in 6.5 years. The owner made the decision to sell the business after surviving all of the stress during COVID, and that is what started me back on my education journey.

I developed basically every system in that business myself from the ground up, through blood sweat and tears. So for this next chapter of my life I am looking to take my career more in the tech mercenary direction for lack of a better term where I am out to focus on developing my own skills in order to live the life I want to live on my own terms as much as is reasonably possible.

So, your advice really resonates with me, and was an extremely valuable addition to my thought process.

Thank you for your response. I think my main concern with no acquiring a degree is being taken seriously as a candidate for jobs. I also want to make sure that I set myself up for success my acquiring the foundational knowledge that will allow me to be a quick efficient learner as I am presented with opportunities to learn new technologies. I will take this advice under advisement though, and make sure that I am being a good consumer in how I spend my money. I am definitely looking to maximize my return on investment, and cut out all the fluff from the education process where possible.

In all seriousness though, congratulations on your life changing accomplishment. Keep up the great work!

The single most insufferable person I have ever had the displeasure of hearing communicate verbally in my three decades of life on this planet.

I’m not sure if you’re interested in the atheist debate sphere at all, if you are then you should give him a listen. He’s a Catholic apologist and presuppositionalist who debates on Discord.

Be warned though, he is fucking awful. If you listen to him debate for more than 30 minutes in one sitting you’re liable to suffer psychological trauma. He’s that bad, not kidding.

The moment I realized I never wanted to moderate a Discord server was the first time I heard a Darth Dawkins debate on YouTube.

I’m very sorry that happened to you. I don’t blame you for being paranoid. Fuck. That. Noise.

I already had one, but thank you for subtly reinforcing my irrational fear given I have never known a single person in my area who has ever gotten bed bugs. One can never be too safe…

My only regret is that I have but one upvote to give.

Honestly, same. I didn’t fully comprehend exactly how bad it had gotten since it was kind of the boiling frog scenario. When you’ve been on Reddit over a decade you know the userbase is considerably worse than it used to be, way more polarized, and unfortunately way more representative of the general population.

Getting to Lemmy immediately reminded me of how the internet used to be to some degree, and when I read the engagement I don’t feel like I immediately need a shower or a lobotomy afterwards. Let’s hope it stays that way as long as possible.