OK, so I've been visiting hobby stores around the country and here's my assessment of where things will be when the dust of the internet and the changing culture settles. Except for the rare exception, there will be five kinds of hobby stores left:
Craft stores, like Hobby Lobby and Michaels
Fad stores, dealing in the latest thing, like RC
Game stores, like Games Workshop, but some independents
Enthusiast stores, probably mostly dealing in trains because there is enough money in that to survive
General, franchised stores, like Hobby Town
Most of the mom and pop hobby stores will morph into one of these or disappear. The first 3 will have a models section because they get some customers but the employees will have little knowledge. The enthusiast stores that do scale models like ours will be hard to find. The franchised stores will be best for us, but they will be driven by the need to stock for what sells best not for specialty needs and they will generally not know our trade. We could do worse than Hobby Town, though. I was just in one in Apex, outside of Raleigh, that stocked pretty well for us. And we'll be really grateful for the internet, even though it will kill most of our favorite hobby stores. I'm probably not saying anything new here, but figured I'd put it out there. Your thoughts?