That means the hidden information could concern any of the things being traded, including the book itself. In a way you are buying chips into the story. I am not sure the tactile elements of the book itself count though. The experience is predictable enough that you can delay gratification till it arrives in the mail. It is probably the community stuff (meeting someone who is looking at the same shelf, or spotting a book someone is reading in the cafe area) that will take longer to fully recreate online.

It may not be enough to save the bookstore when the Kindle really hits though. But that has to do with the specifics of the books example. For vegetables, things are stacked the other way.

Tradeshows and conferences… hmm, yes. Am thinking they belong with ‘fair’ way up in my evolutionary tree. The larger seasonal affairs that supplemented the weekly markets before permanent market towns evolved. The traditional camel festival in Pushkar, in India, is really a tradeshow of sorts.

The items that come to mind for me are price, availability, popularity and possibly a little history (either in the form of recommendations or a conversation with the staff on a particular book). Barnes & Noble may have additional pieces of subtle information manifesting themselves in the form of the physical books, bookshelves and close-up book covers, which lend themselves to the grand(er) narrative that you referred to.

Perhaps this was what you were referring to. If I may expand into one tiny example: on Amazon, you may get instant recommendations on what other people bought, but you will never be able to physically touch/visualize a hard-cover book with beautiful artwork and embossed lettering (common with fantasy and sci-fi books, of which I’m an avid reader).

For your third question regarding the effect that markets have had on landscapes, I propose that this effect is not as pronounced as the the other two, and that physical markets more often than not come about as a consequence of the other two (residential + work/industry). I haven’t read Underhill, but I would venture a guess and suggest that (from what I just googled), he might agree with the idea that malls should be placed in convenient areas relative to residences first, given that his research shows that most (mall) shoppers are women. This seems to align at least (at least on the surface) with your hunter-gatherer origin myth.

Where would you classify tradeshows and conferences? These seem to tend more towards the hunter (male) model due to their seeming single-mindedness and (sometimes) great distances that companies travel to display and demo their wares or products within a specialized industry.