Yesterday we got the news that Amazon has acquired GoodReads.

As usual, some people responded with predictable panic. “Greedy corporations, blah, blah, blah, they are going to own everything, blah, blah, blah, monopoly, blah, blah, blah, the End is Nigh!” (I’m paraphrasing here.)

Well, I’m not scared, and I’ll tell you why.  7-11.

Remember 7-11?  You may still have one or two in your area, but if you’re my age, you remember when they were everywhere.  This is the company that essentially invented the idea of the convenience store.  They were open all night, they had a small staff, they stocked only the items with the highest turnover.  They took the idea of a retail market and stripped away everything that wasn’t a high profit item, cut the overhead to the bone, and proceeded to price everybody else out of business.

So why don’t they still own the market…