Article should be titled 'The Lost Civic Life of Mom and Pop Stores'- no kid making $4.50 an hour is cultivating a third space atmosphere at Blockbuster, whereas any Mom and Pop place can do that, no matter what they sell.
The only non-bar place with an social atmosphere that I even know of anymore is one town nearby has a hardware store that has the old family line running it that the father and grandfather can sit around shooting the shit in it as a semi-job as they let their kids manage and operate it. And so a lot of other grey beards like to hang around for awhile when they go to pick up a can of 3-in-1 oil or a can of paint because they have known these people for 60+ years. They did have to move to a more prime location in town as the town shrank over the decades, and they also added a gun/sportings good section, and then one son learned gunsmithing to make its otherwise limited size and selection more useful.
But that is certainly not the norm, im not sure if I could find another hardware store like it within 100 miles. The social atmosphere probably barely manages to bring in the extra business needed to maintain it and it took 3 consecutive generations working well enough together and towards their customers to never break the strong community bond.