Save the Music - Record shops and Music products are dying.

The browsing nature of a record shop is more fulfilling that a categorised list at an online store and there is less potential online for getting into new genres of music as one might pick up a cheap record in a store from a completely new genre to them and broaden musical horizons.

Perhaps this is again a generational difference. The writer of this counterargument is of the mp3 generation and has never felt that browsing at a record store is more fulfilling, or that online shops are too "categorized." Some like Amazon are, but others like Pandora and last.fm have led to many surprising discoveries. 
 
However my general pattern for finding new music is not through online stores, it is typically something like:  
 
1. Read about a new artist or musical genre in an online article (usually wiki, pitchfork, or some other online musical publication), or on public radio 
 
2. Look up the artist on youtube or last.fm 
 
3. Skim through reviews of some of their more highly rated albums 
 
4. If interested, buy from an online source. 
 
Of course I have nothing against independently run record shops, and if there was one in my area I would gratefully stop by. However with so much music out there, tastes diversifying and limited shelf space, most of the customer base will just be music lovers coming to browse, and buying only when they happen to find something good. The ones who already know what they want will buy online because they are aware the store may not carry it. 
 
Therefore record stores are no longer profitable business and should ideally be run as a hobby by someone with a little extra money to spare.