France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

I don't know, but I'd seriously doubt Amazon could make a dent on its business considering it's French and has been selling online almost as long as Amazon.

Did any of those advantages exist before Amazon was massive? Or did Amazon become massive because it was providing better service?

Online ordering is complicated for Amazon because Amazon is massive. It is not that complicated for small bookstores, who absolutely are using computerized inventory (at least every small bookstore I’ve ever been to has). Even if online ordering isn’t an option, “call your friendly bookstore employee to order” is an option. That’s what I mean by not being lazy - you can jump to excuses and asking the government to help, or you can come up with creative solutions to serve your customers.

Speaking of COVID, there actually are strong parallels. At the start of the pandemic, a bunch of restaurants just gave up and closed - they didn’t even attempt to find creative solutions. Other restaurants - presumably the ones with less lazy and/or stuck-in-their-ways owners - came up with creative solutions. They did takeout. They made stay-at-home craft projects to foster community over social media. They offered cooking classes with local meal kit delivery. They adapted their restaurants to facilitate delivery and takeout. Several restaurants actually ended up with larger, more prosperous businesses.

Also: it may strain your imagination, but Amazon was large and successful _before_ they had a delivery network. And they continued to grow because they provided better service, even when they were dependent on UPS and USPS. French booksellers (and all booksellers) could have chosen to improve their service in the face of competition for the years it took Amazon to create a delivery network.

At least in the US (maybe the French could copy if it doesn’t work like this) local shipping via post is actually very fast; very likely within two days if it doesn’t need to go to a distribution center. Amazon has to build thousands of warehouses to take advantage of that; grandpa’s local bookseller can naturally take advantage of that geographic locality to customers. Or they could team up with other booksellers and form a shipping alliance/partnership (this also exists among US local bookstores). Shoprunner exists. There are creative solutions beyond just giving up and asking the government to make books more expensive for everyone.

Local booksellers (the good ones, anyway) are doing fine in the US, even post-COVID. So I don’t really know why you’re making excuses for them. The French people deserve to get great service from their local booksellers.

Edit: thank you! Of course one «want[s] more details», do you think this is the place to type 'Oh, by the way, do not wait for your wife to come home tonight' and just stop there as the rest may be unimportant?!

Well, it was neither a joke, nor an argument, that's why. It was a proposition/value judgement expressed in jest.

But if you want more details, it's based on the belief that the idea being that "laissez-faire" was not a good concept to begin with.

And despite being invented in France back in the day, was never really popular in France or Europe in general (Austrian economists excepted), where the "government is the enemy" idea didn't really took hold in the populace either.

We like our social democracy and government regulating some things, thank you very much.

So, unless you chance on the statistically atypical (aside from echo bubbly HN/VC style circles) european who hates "government" not for/when doing bad shit, but for being government, and wants no restrictions imposed on corporations, it is more thought of as something neoliberal / Thacherite / Ayn-Rand-loving types would have as their motto - and unironically have their militarry enforce to countries who didn't like it.