alt Hacker NewsI would argue that they were a lot like Walmart (when Walmart was starting out)... clothes, electronics, sporting/seasonal goods... then they ventured out into additional services like family photography, optometry, pharmacy... really, the only difference was the mail order catalog.
I was there, 3000 years ago when Walmart didn't even sell groceries, I still remember mom commenting "It feels weird buying food at Walmart now and not even going to [regional grocery chain]".
And now, decades later everything is full circle. I avoid Walmart and Amazon like the plague and try to only shop at smaller outlets, whether brick-and-mortar or online. It might be slightly more expensive but I assume that's just the tax you pay to avoid a corporate monopoly hellscape.