by godelski | 2025-05-19 22:31:09+00:00
I believe I have provided an explanation that is easy to understand. Here is the original statement

>>>>>> Malls offered a lot more business value than just facilitating direct purchases. They do a lot to build brands, loyalty, and advertise to customers.

I am not sure what you are expecting or what you are taking contention with.

If you wish for a thorough analysis then my answer is "This is Hacker News". Such an expectation is excessive and out of scope of the platform.

I am happy to have my statements rebutted and critiqued but not by accusation of failing to account for widely understood and basic conditions. If you believe I am improperly evaluating the costs of these, then that is another matter and I am happy to have those discussions. Even if these are the conjecture of two rational and reasonably informed people without direct and detailed analysis. If you wish to seek out research and do detailed analysis I not only will not stop you, I'd encourage you. This would be a great way to counter my comment and have a high likelihood of changing my belief/understanding of the environment.

> p.s.: on multiple posts,

Yes, there is part of me in this. Part of me that wishes to uphold a degrading standard in conversation quality. Forgive me if I wish to push back when critiques are derailing a conversation or are not operating in good faith. I do in fact believe that we should not treat other uses as children and part of that is operating under the assumption that other users are reasonably informed (unless otherwise explicitly indicated).

Frankly, because not operating under this belief generates fighting, degrades conversations, and derails conversations. As others might more succinctly say "this isn't Reddit." I am only trying to be explicit in stating why such retorts are low quality.

It appears that frequently people do not realize the assumptions that their responses makes.

> I already know [because I am smart]

You misunderstand.

The push-back is not "because I am smart" but rather "because I am not incredibly ignorant."

I do not want to conflate the two. They are significantly different. The reason "I already know" is conditioned on my intelligence being above that of a child. This is what generates the insult and the more aggressive follow-up after they doubled down. It is not conditioned on being above average, nor being in the "smart" category.

Let's look at the original response

>>>>> Bricks and mortar stores cost money just to exist

Do you understand how this makes the claim that I do not understand that physical stores have operating expenses? Do you understand why I believe why such an accusation necessitates the belief that I am incredibly naive? Would you not agree that such information is common knowledge?

Mind you, my original comment also demonstrates awareness that these physical stores have operational costs. My critique makes no sense otherwise, as there would be no reason to even close these stores if they were free to operate. So this contributes to the reason danparsonson's response is inappropriate and insulting. It is in bad faith (the faith being I'm not malicious nor unreasonable).

I think you should also look back to how I responded much differently to 20after4. I did equally push back at their first point which is equally egregious. But I move on and engage with the rest. Their comment has additional substance and isn't entirely contingent upon excessive naivety, whereas that is all there is to danparsonson's (their third line completely ignores my entire thesis of physical locations providing value other than direct sales and is itself making the same error I am criticizing: hyper-fixation on measuring operational value through direct sales). So they get different responses.

> Let's focus on substance.

This is my explicit intention. I hope that is now clear.