Sort of. Mostly this is just what happens when you build a platform that allows basically anyone to sell something on it. Local businesses have limited space, so necessarily they needed to limit product to trusted brands/partners/publishers.
Amazon has actually made it possible for self publishing to exist. There are a lot of successful authors now that never would have made it in the old ‘local bookstore buys books from publishing house’ paradigm.
But this of course has also opened the floodgates for scammers which utilize those same indie-friendly options to try to exploit people.
I think the issues are a little more nuanced than just ‘local business good, Amazon bad’. Not that I think Amazon is good, I just think there are real, valid reasons why small bookstores (and their large book publishers) had problems.
Can’t say I’ve experienced this myself (millennial). Maybe I’m the bad influence in my friend group? I’ve definitely turned down going to things because I couldn’t afford it. That said, when gaming at least, I tend to just buy the game for my friends as I want to play with them and don’t want them to have to worry about that cost. Games are, relatively speaking, pretty cheap so I view it comparable to paying for a night out, which is often about the same cost.
I’ll also suggest Tree of Aeons if you want a magical equivalent (guy becomes a magical tree). Both series capture the transition to non-human thinking pretty well