This is a tragedy in its own right. Small businesses create richer communities and help stave off cultural homogeneity. They can be a source of pride for locals. They help de-centralize economic power. I hope we can find a way to rebuild what's being lost here.
I've wondered if part of the discrepancy between the stock market and the broader economy, is that the pandemic is going to disproportionately crush small / private / not-publicly-traded businesses who don't have any financial buffer to weather a downturn.<p>Like, maybe Starbucks traffic is down 20% or whatever, but if 50% of their competition (independent coffeeshops) permanently close, they'll be better set up for success in the 5 years to come, and this accounts for their current relatively strong valuation.<p>(obviously even stronger in the case of AMZN, but even Target and Wal-Mart are benefitting from being allowed to stay open, while a lot of their competition was shut down -- speciality stores like salons and clothing stores were closed, but big-box stores selling everything stayed open)
Is there a marketplace for easily buying closed businesses?<p>As much as it may be unpleasant, it may be beneficial for employment to help hedge funds with a lot of cash snap these up to prevent them and the associated jobs from disappearing entirely.
There's this one purely catering (Vietnamese) coffee "company" that has entirely pivoted to pop-ups the past few months, and using donations from customers to fund deliveries of coffees to hospitals and other front-line worker orgs.<p>I'm sure that not _every_ business can do this, but I've definitely enjoyed supporting this business in particular because I like their coffee, and I know it's supporting them and the community at least for now.<p>I think for some businesses they just won't be able to survive unless they can pivot. One way that I've seen is by giving up a brick and mortar location, moving to a shared/communal kitchen, and then doing pop-ups.
If this economic downturn helps put extortionist companies like Yelp out of business, bring it. The companies that survive or resurrect will be better off without them.<p>That's the free market. When things are booming, pigfuckers like yelp are free to seek rent and extort. When things go bad, hopefully yelp and yelp-like things go down with everyone else.<p>I don't wish unemployment on anyone who actually works for a living. But the C-suite and investors of companies like Yelp can take a dive, as far as I'm concerned.
Previous discussion from a couple days ago:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923172" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923172</a>