When I see pawn shops I wonder how they manage to stay alive in the economic and technological environment of 2018. With the platforms for selling our junk online growing more and more, I am constantly baffled by the existence of such an obsolete business. After a great amount of time in traffic I came to the conclusion that their lifeline must be thieves, right? Like, folks that don’t want to advertise the stolen loot they have collected from their neighbourhood on midnight strolls. Just take what you can get at a pawn shop price-wise: probably pennies on the dollar, but it’s still a good trade if you paid nothing for it.
Some businesses don’t seem to have a place in today’s society and I find that interesting. Often it is more specific than just a general business model; you see these different shops and boutiques and you wonder how on earth they continue to exist. Maybe laundering money, maybe just the blood, sweat, and tears of a small business owner. Either way, I spend a lot of my commuting time considering businesses like pawn shops.
Image: Caleb Campbell/The Cascade
