No one should feel obliged to buy local to support the industry IF there's a much better deal available elsewhere.
Because it's short-sighted - what Zappa called "the big stupid". if I were to say similarly "Why should we support local music when there is so much good stuff available on the international market?" how would you feel? Quite simply, because by not supporting it, we never give it a chance to grow and reach the point where it can compete with the international stuff.
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Nope. If you want to use that example it should be Why would I buy an album of an international artist from Amazon when there are so many local music stores I can get it from.
Big music Stores are great if you live near one. But a lot of us don't. Let's say I want to buy a Fender Strat. For the best in-store deal I can probably go to Cape Town and hope and pray they will give me a decent discount on a floor model that I can play and that I like. The transport, accomodation food etc will with a conservative estimate add about R4000 to the price though. So unless they give me one absolute cracker of a deal it probably won't be worth the trip. Especially if the missus goes with and we do the tourist thing. ?
Luckily for me the local Store here has a Std Strat. Only one though. In Blizzard Pearl. No choice of models or colours or playing a few and keeping the one that speaks to you, but at least it's there right. Yes it is stickered for a few cents short of 20 thousand rand, but we can knock a grand or two of that for being willing to pay cash and maybe get them down to about 17k. Maybe. Or I can buy two for that price from Musiciansfriend thats probably seen less playing than the one in the store which everybody keeps noodling on, keep the one that plays best and sell the other one on to cover a fair chunk of the purchase price of the one I keep.
Music stores will have to stop relying on customers buying from them because It's The Right Thing To Do. The Big Stupid? Maybe. It depends on which side of the big picture you're looking at and from which angle. According to a member's signature Zappa also said that "Progress is not possible without deviation from the norm". For the industry to grow in today's global market they will have to change their modus. They can't keep doing the same thing they did 20 years ago and just expect their customers be happy with it.
