True. A good example being Sears, which should have become Amazon but didn't. Prior to the arrival of Wal-Mart, if you couldn't find something locally (which, again, was true more often than not) your options were to drive 50-150 miles to the nearest large city, or order from the local Sears catalog merchant.

The latter wasn't what most people think of as a Sears store, because the local economy could never have supported such a thing. It was more like a small office with a counter and a stockroom behind it. They didn't keep any inventory, but could order products for pickup in about a week. Pickup, mind you. You still had to drive to town to get your order. As stupid as this sounds, it was 10x worse in person.

So if Wal-Mart didn't exist, it would have had to be invented. It was not (just) a monster that victimized smaller merchants and suppliers, a tax scam, or a plot to exploit the welfare system. It was something that needed to happen, a large gap in the market that eventually got filled.

Nowadays I wouldn't set foot in one, but it was different at the time. I didn't mean to write a long essay stanning for Wal-Mart, but your original post is a bit of a pet peeve.

Local stores are better in many ways, but not the ones consumers care about: price and convenience.