Good-bye, RadioShack

Isn’t it strange that those favoring expansion of progress-reducing government agencies call themselves “progressives”? Let’s juxtapose that curiosity against free enterprise’s “creative destruction,” which is sometimes tinged with sadness.

This morning, Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker, in his overview of stories in today’s paper, wrote, “RadioShack set up shop in Boston 94 years ago and flourished as interest in electronic gadgetry took off in the ’70s and ’80s. On Thursday, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after reaching a deal to sell about half of its stores to a hedge fund. We look [subscription required] at the factors that led to RadioShack’s demise and why hopes died for a turnaround plan.”

Baker continued, “The last straw, we note, was the holiday season in which many of the company’s stores were empty. A number of the tech enthusiasts who fueled RadioShack’s ascent decades ago say there isn’t much the chain could do to win them back. ‘People used to go to RadioShack to hang out. It’s almost a place to avoid now,’ said the president of the Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists.”

He then asked readers to share their personal stories or memories of the retailer.

I have an emotional attachment to RadioShack. When I turned 10 in 1960, about 90 percent of my life’s savings—about $10—went for a RadioShack transistor radio that allowed me to listen to Boston Red Sox games. It was my most prized possession, and it lasted for years. RadioShack did OK over the next several decades as it sold new products like CB radios and mobile music players. But, as the Journal noted, RadioShack stunk in the smartphone era.

The bad news is that RadioShack’s 24,000 employees will need to seek a new company home, although many will probably stay where they are under new management. Happily, the knowledge they’ve gained of sales and technology is transferable, and months (but not years) of unemployment insurance will help with the transitions, which often are difficult.

But consider the alternative, which we saw lived out for decades in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China: Keep the old stores alive, reduce incentives for invention and improvement, and my granddaughter could look forward in a few years to buying a RadioShack transistor radio of her own. Happily, free enterprise has brought her laptops, tablets, smartphones, and more—and the Federal Communications Commission up until this week has been largely hands-off.

Think of how many companies have died and been born since 1960, and the way new giants such as record-setting Apple have emerged. About two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies of 1960 were off the list 40 years later. Meanwhile, federal agencies creep on from decade to decade, and now the FCC is expanding internet regulation under the euphemistic handle of “net neutrality.”

If you have personal Radio Shack stories or memories, please share them with our readers, or send them to The Wall Street Journal.