Say you were in the 1920s or 1970s. If you wanted to find a store to buy music or just any store that catered to a specific niche, how would you have gone about finding out what your options were?
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If you wanted something very niche, and/or you lived too far from a city big enough to have the kind of stores you wanted, there was always mail order catalogs.
For example I was into cycling and camping. I subscribed to Bicycling magazine, and Outside magazine. Each would always have ads offering free product catalogs with names like Bike Nashbar or Gander Mountain. Tear out the card, fill in your name and address and now you’re on the catalog mailing list. Every few months a cool new catalog would show up in the mail — many were actually really interesting, with mini little product reviews, photos and stories from super avid customers, etc.
Great, now I miss getting those catalogs 😛 Sure, Amazon.com lets you view products in your room using AR, but it’s just not the same as a really fun catalog like Nashbar was.
Oy! I just checked their site — it’s a model of modern efficiency. Nothing like the fun casual reading experience the paper catalogs were. In fact, getting free catalogs in the mail was a fine way to stay up on hobbies and interests if you weren’t quite in a position to spend money subscribing to a monthly magazine.
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