There's no doubt that Amazon and its ilk have decimated the high street, but not of all types of shops. Clothing - as Fester points out - is still going strong on the high street, partly as a social experience. Places such as Cheshire Oaks are thriving, and they mainly deal in clothing. But two things the internet has done is effectively force prices down and offer consumers massive choice, thus raising expectations which few high street shops can meet.
Your quote Ian,..."There's no doubt that Amazon and its ilk have decimated the high street"...made me think back a few years, in the 90s I had three shops, all doing well, until the lottery started, "decimated" is to strong a word but the adverse effect was considerable, then came the Scratchcard!!... one shop in particular halved it's income, that town had a population of three thousand, the
main outlet posted the number of weekly winners in it's window, never less than 700 winners, probable just a £1 but if 700 won how many lost, how much did the retailers lose in general?......today the lottery is bigger, dozens of scratch cards plus online bingo etc some are for good causes but the overall effect is less money for the high street.
UK Office for National Statistics Research figures "prove that this type of gambling, money is spent on more of this than people spend on going to the cinema, concerts, theme parks, museums and theatre combined. A lot of people now don’t go out for dinner or spend money on activities since people don’t have as much money coming in than they used to have"
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/englands-poorest-spend-gambling-machines