By Patrick Wood
Publisher, Multimedia Channels

Dear Reader,

Something interesting has happened in the world of online buying: On some large commercial websites there no longer is just one price. There are some very big players in the marketplace that now use computer algorithms to estimate what you might be willing to pay for something based on your past buying behavior, where you live, current market demand, and other demographic factors. This means an item might cost more for you than someone else because of who you are or where you live. For more on this, read the article,

How Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All at https://getpocket.com/explore/item/ how-online-shopping-makes-suckers-of-us-all.

Many of them pay little or no federal, state, and local taxes. Essentially, they are getting a free ride, leaving the rest of us to shoulder the burden of paying for governmental services we all use.

I want to clarify that this is not true for all online retailers. Many honest retailers have one price for every- one and don’t use tricky algorithms to jack up the price. But some of the bigger ones do.

What do you think of this? Does this increase your trust in the big online vendors such as Amazon? Not mine. I want to buy from local retailers who treat me just the way they treat everyone else—fairly, respectfully, and honestly. I want to buy from retailers who work and live in my community, who will spend the dollars they get from me on other goods and services right here where I live. In other words, I want to buy locally.

I hope you do too.