> Fry's Electronics closed here in the west part of Phoenix, several years ago. Their shelves were starting to get bare and were selling things from consignment. It took a while for them to die, and I finally found out why: they were having trouble getting credit to buy inventory.

I was going to do some of my 2019 Christmas shopping at the one and only Fry's in the Chicago area, but I walked inside and it looked like a bomb had gone off. Nothing was organized, lots of empty shelves, the cafe was closed, and I got a serious case of the heebie-jeebies and hightailed it out of there.

Google Street View shows it as it was in August 2019. As far as I know, the building is empty now.

And then there was TigerDirect, but that's a separate rant. I used to have three major computer shops within driving distance, but it's down to one now with MicroCenter.