Cost of lost sales in NY is lower, lots of people in NY still buy from Amazon rather than Walmart
And Amazon didn't want a test case about whether having other services in NY such as advertising agency or stockbrokers, lawyers constituted a presence
Lecturers were necessary in the middle ages because of a shortage of books - so there weren't enough copies to go around.
The teaching profession does occasionally take a while to catch up.
This isn't exactly revolutionary - we have been doing it for centuries we call them tutorials.