
55% Yelp businesses that were temp closed are now perm - onewhonknocks
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/23/permanent-business-closures-yelp/
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LanguageGamer
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.

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tluyben2
Are you buying only local? As I agree with you, most people I know just order
from Amazon even though the local places deliver too (the owners often drive
themselves; or their children). Or, if not a Covid spot, go there ofcourse.
Still, why pay a cent extra right? Not saying you think like that but most
people do.

Restaurant/fastfood chains are preferred over local ones as well. I have no
clue why (outside money, but cooking yourself is cheaper and nicer): if I
wanted to eat plastic, I could just eat a garbage bag. But it is what it is.

Same goes for wine, beer etc; you fav craftbeer is probably owned by Heineken,
while the local brewers are going out of business, even if their beer is far
better.

Stimulating local businesses starts with completely cutting out the companies
that own everything. People will never do that though for many reasons. It
starts with money; without subsidising local companies by the gov, there is no
way they can compete.

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enahs-sf
I have definitely been supporting my local brewers much to the chagrin of my
wife and waistline.

~~~
tluyben2
Why does your wife not like it? Mine is a brewer, so i'm curious.

Edit: as I get downvoted, let me reformulate as I guess it reads different
than I meant (not native English). I am curious why she doesn't like; my wife
being a brewer has nothing to do with it.

~~~
mensetmanusman
Since no one has explained it,

The joke is that he is enjoying local brewers so much that he has gained a lot
of weight or has some behavior changes due to increased alcohol intake that
bother his wife :)

~~~
tluyben2
ah I indeed did not get that; weight gain sure, but that seemed a separate
item from wife’s chagrin. Thanks for explaining!

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bpodgursky
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.

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.

(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)

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chii
> if 50% of their competition (independent coffeeshops) permanently close

indie coffee shops will come again. Starbucks coffee is basically the
mcdonalds of restaurants - no real flavour and too much sugar imho. It's good,
consistent, but not top notch quality.

Indie coffee shops are usually run by people who are passionate about making
the best cup. This downturn will kill some of them - but i'm sure they will
eventually return.

~~~
searchableguy
Why does this not apply to internet then?

Big businesses can increase their efficiency through lobbying, scale, money,
and political favors. Most people in a broken economy will look for the
cheapest than the best value. This will surely kill many indie businesses -
just not completely destroy the term.

~~~
chii
> Most people in a broken economy will look for the cheapest than the best
> value. This will surely kill many indie businesses

if the indie business has no value proposition, then market forces says they
can't exist. It's not as if they are entitled to exist just because they are
"indie".

As for coffee shops, if they can't make a latte better than starbucks, then
they weren't going to survive anyway.

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MattGaiser
Is there a marketplace for easily buying closed businesses?

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.

~~~
itake
I’m definitely thinking about that too.

I’d love to have a side hustle brick and mortar biz alongside my day job.

~~~
rnotaro
I could even pay you to get my business and it's debt.

Closing business have creditors most of the time. You can't really buy them.

~~~
MattGaiser
Creditors want their money back, so they might accept an offer.

~~~
greedo
Depends on their position. When my restaurant went under, we had a pretty hard
lease with the landlord, and he wouldn't budge one iota. After 6 months of
paying the lease, we were finally able to negotiate 15% off the remaining
term.

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spike021
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.

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.

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.

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ianamartin
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.

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.

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.

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hbcondo714
Previous discussion from a couple days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923172](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923172)

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Animats
How many YC businesses have closed?

