I use it the way I used a card catalog at the library for finding what is out there.
For shopping it saves time and labor to find what is available that without it would be difficult and if you were persistent a lot of time on the telephone going from this person said to call this person who said to call this person etc.
We do not personal business on the computer but she files some taxes in that manner as it is dam-ed hard to do it any other way.
Could I survive without it, in heartbeat but I would miss some parts, especially for finding parts.
Although often, when finding firearm or auto parts all it really supplies is telephone numbers and I still end up talking to people who tell me who to call next.
