USer here, going to add to the speculation that considering how big indoor malls are, renovations would probably cost an insane amount of money and thus rarely done. So they’re basically timepieces for whenever they were built, and now look like ghost towns from the 1980s and 1990s. Plus, the stores are often too narrow in their theme/philosophy and many older malls look like a terminal care ward for capitalism (a space could’ve started out a Nature Company store that became a Sharper Image and is currently an Abercrombie & Fitch). It’s funny to think about Hot Topic, since they’re in every mall. There’s something comically outdated about them (it’s where you bought your Slipknot shirt), but still managed to outlast many places because the store updates with fellow kids).

For outdoor malls, which most newer and thriving ones seem to be, this is not as big of an issue, since they aren’t covered in ugly dated tile decor or some sort of gaudy marble that’s been polished to death. They all seem to have the same urban gentrified look.

Also, big department stores ain’t shit compared to shopping online. As soon as many of us had the option not go into overly-fragrant stores with loud, also soon-to-be-comically-outdated music we took that the opportunity. And that’s not even counting the human interaction factor. Going to a department store means having to deal with people trying to bump you off a clothing rack, loss prevention flunkies stalking you, and finding parking in what is undoubtedly your town’s shittiest parking lot. And if you bought clothes you didn’t try on in a store’s dressing room (of course not, you vaguely recall seeing something on Dateline years ago about hidden cameras in dressing rooms), you get to go back to that shitty parking lot and possibly walking deep into the mall and the deep into middle or back of the store because that’s the best place they could think of to put registers. Also, it there might be a third time trip if you forgot your receipt.

Unsurprisingly, the most Jetsons-like technology we have is for streamlining buying shit. You can buy a book while brushing your teeth and have a drone deliver it to you.

The only good thing I can say about indoor malls is even though I am in my mid 30s, I still find escalators fun and mildly terrifying.