Business idea

I think there is, or may evolve into, a market for old fashioned books, and an old fashioned card catalogue.  Nothing you do on the internet is private.  You can’t look up the capital of Moldova without it being recorded and logged.  Algorithms track your very thought process, I suspect, if anyone has an interest in you.  I assume I am tracked, to some extent, although I would assume it is automated (I was talking with an NSA contractor once, and he told me if you are a “person of interest” they assign someone to “watch” you 24/7; I will add this blog is banned from Facebook, for unspecified “policy violations”.  I can’t link it.)

What if you could go somewhere, like a library, but not a library, and pull out an old World Book encyclopedia and look up the capital of Moldova?  Then spend an hour just browsing through the thing, like I did often when I was  a kid?  $10/month, new books added weekly.

You could read books there.  There could be a magazine section, like there used to be.

It sounds retro, and it is, but who would have thought records would make a comeback?  I think in the right market, with the right marketing, this would work, and perhaps work really well.  You could ask everyone to check their phones at the door.  I think even the kids are starting to understand their addiction is unhealthy. 

Free coffee–how about an espresso machine people could operate themselves, with training?–meeting areas for people to hang out and talk.  Bean bag chairs.  Place to do old school homework, with unconnected computers running word processing software.  Maybe even old software, barely better than the Atari games which might also be present.  Maybe even a typewriter or two.

A working pay phone.  Etc.