Surrounded by Bodies

Reading this interview with Alain de Botton, I started to think about the relationship between organized religion and retail's transformation.

Religion's popularity is plummeting in cosmopolitan areas, and this is exactly where experience-based retail is on the rise. It's not a coincidence. People need something in their lives - community, to be surrounded by actual humans - and they will seek it out in secular gathering spaces. Retail is just riding the wave.