Browsing a used bookstore (or any other bookstore) when I have some time to kill is still fun. [And my local library has a booksale every year.] But with the exception of maybe looking through cookbooks or art books or something like that, it's not really how I buy or even browse books any longer.
In the "bad old days" when new books were mostly sold at list price and there really wan't a whole lot of independent information about books out there, it often made a lot of sense to buy used books at half off based on serendipitous browsing of the shelves. But that's not really true any longer.
I used to go into Harvard Square on a Saturday afternoon every month or two in no small part to browse books and CDs at a variety of stores (many of which are long gone). I haven't done that in years.
I believe you’ve stopped doing that but the experience was more fun. Now you have search and recommendations and it’s definitely a better value, book reviews can give a good hint if a book is crap or not what you expect before you buy it.
In the "bad old days" when new books were mostly sold at list price and there really wan't a whole lot of independent information about books out there, it often made a lot of sense to buy used books at half off based on serendipitous browsing of the shelves. But that's not really true any longer.
I used to go into Harvard Square on a Saturday afternoon every month or two in no small part to browse books and CDs at a variety of stores (many of which are long gone). I haven't done that in years.