How to survive—and thrive—in Amazon’s world

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View in browser  |  Your newsletter preferences  |  Not yet a subscriber?  04.16.23 How Bookshop.org Survives—and Thrives—in Amazon's World Remember when, in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were glimmers of a different world? Birds sang louder, or so we thought. Global carbon emissions declined. People wanted to "reckon" with racism. It took widespread lockdowns and sky-high death tolls, but many people began to see that there are other ways of being in the world. What's become of those 2020 revelations? One thing, at least, that's stuck around is the bookselling startup Bookshop.org. Its founder and CEO Andy Hunter had the idea for his company before the pandemic, but it has nevertheless been deeply shaped by that period of time. The company operates with some of that early pandemic ethos: It provides easy ecommerce solutions for indies that couldn't otherwise afford it; it shares its revenue with them; its stockholder agreement forbids a sale to "any retailer then-presently ranked among the top 10 largest retailers." As Kate Knibbs writes, Bookshop was "the sourdough of ecommerce. It rose with surprising velocity." In her remarkable profile of Hunter and his company, Knibbs takes readers inside Bookshop.org—Hunter's answer to Amazon's domination of ecommerce—and shows us how it got started and where it's headed. "He wants to show business owners how to scale up without selling out—without needing to kill the competition." — Matthew McKnight | Features Editor READ THE FULL STORY You Might Also Like Can Burning Man Pull Out of Its Climate Death Spiral? BY ALDEN WICKER | 11-MINUTE READ Excessive heat, ever fiercer storms, and a reliance on fossil fuels are becoming an existential crisis for the yearly festival in the Nevada desert. The Therapy Part of Psychedelic Therapy Is a Mess BY GRACE BROWNE | 8-MINUTE READ There's little evidence to prove how necessary or helpful many of the accepted norms in psychedelic-assisted therapy are—and some could even harm patients. Amazon's Drone Delivery Dream Is Crashing BY JEFF LINK AND PARESH DAVE | 9-MINUTE READ The tech giant dreams of filling the skies with package-bearing drones. But it has repeatedly failed to clear technical and regulatory hurdles. Mathematicians Find an Infinity of Possible Black Hole Shapes BY STEVE NADIS | 7-MINUTE READ In three-dimensional space, the surface of a black hole must be a sphere. But in higher dimensions, an infinite number of configurations are possible. One City's Escape Plan From Rising Seas BY SUSAN CRAWFORD | 10-MINUTE READ For residents of the historic South Carolina city, the best solution to the coming storm may be to leave their homes behind. Paris Fell in Love With Escooters. Now It Might Ban Them BY MORGAN MEAKER | 5-MINUTE READ Weaving through traffic and protests in the French capital shows that the real problem isn't scooters—it's cars. GET WIRED Get WIRED for just $29.99 $5. That includes exclusive subscriber-only content, plus free stickers! Subscribe now. Have questions or comments? Reply to this email.   This email was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our email address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions