This article only makes sense if people are taking advantage of convenience and then using the saved time for leisure, thats not whats happening for most people though. Most people spend 9 hours...
This article only makes sense if people are taking advantage of convenience and then using the saved time for leisure, thats not whats happening for most people though.
Most people spend 9 hours at work with an hour commute, then go home and do more work in the form of chores, and if Amazon didn’t exist they would just never make it to the store and Christmas would be ruined.
I can list good reasons to not use Amazon. I still do ( the alternatives just don't match up ), because of something similar to what you wrote. If I need a new spatula I can spend a few moments...
I can list good reasons to not use Amazon. I still do ( the alternatives just don't match up ), because of something similar to what you wrote. If I need a new spatula I can spend a few moments ordering it on Amazon and have it delivered to my door. The alternative is to use up ninety or more minutes of my time. Getting to a store, getting back, finding the spatulas, not having as good of a selection, checkout, parking, etc.
Ironically I have been finding the opposite is true nowadays. It used to be like this but Amazon has been filled with so many cheap knockoff terrible quality shit, finding stuff in stores has...
Ironically I have been finding the opposite is true nowadays. It used to be like this but Amazon has been filled with so many cheap knockoff terrible quality shit, finding stuff in stores has become better.
I enjoy baking but haven't done it in a long time. Last week I decided to pick it back up. Well I opened my flour and found flour bugs infesting it. Had to throw that away. Decided I should get an airtight container for flour, sugar, etc since I never bothered to get those when I moved to my new apartment.
I spent probably an hour browsing Amazon and searching for a quality product. I just wanted a simple sealed container that can hold a bag of flour and keep it safe from pests. Everything on Amazon was these cheap crappy containers, had poor reviews of them not sealing fully, or the latches breaking. People gave some good reviews for some name brand products but those were super expensive on Amazon. Like $50 for 2 containers.
Eventually said fuck it, since I needed new flour I would have to go to the store anyway, I ran out to Target, went to the kitchen section and found the exact product I saw recommended, 4 containers for $30. Grabbed that and my flour and was back home in half the time I spent trying to research what I could get on Amazon.
And I didn't have to wait for shipping, even though it probably would've arrived the next day, I had what I needed in half an hour. Would've been faster if I'd done that from the start.
Did the exact same thing for a different item a few days later and got something quicker from Target than trying to find what I wanted on Amazon.
In double irony, I find that there's now no solution to many of my shopping woes. I find that there is so much cheap garbage on Amazon it's pushing me towards trying to find local options....
In double irony, I find that there's now no solution to many of my shopping woes. I find that there is so much cheap garbage on Amazon it's pushing me towards trying to find local options. However, Amazon gutted local stores a decade ago and now the options are pretty limited (unless I want healing crystals... there are three stores very close to me that seem to be doing just fine selling overpriced rocks) or I go to a local store to find the exact same alibaba garbage being sold for more expensive than available on Amazon because many of the quality brands have gone out of business or have had to kill their own quality to stay competitive. So now online sucks and in store sucks. I can't believe Bezos figured out how to enshitify my actual life.
I haven't had that experience. I'm still finding a good selection of good products on Amazon. <insert my previous comment about using Amazon here>. :-). Glad you are back into baking as premade...
I haven't had that experience. I'm still finding a good selection of good products on Amazon. <insert my previous comment about using Amazon here>. :-). Glad you are back into baking as premade baked goods are at ridiculous prices now. :-)
I didn't even think about selling, it's just for myself and friends and family. I have a nasty sweet tooth. Where would people buy/sell homemade baked goods? Something I might look into
I didn't even think about selling, it's just for myself and friends and family. I have a nasty sweet tooth. Where would people buy/sell homemade baked goods? Something I might look into
In the US: look into cottage kitchen licensure laws from your state if you want to sell. Buying - farmers markets, local downtown shops, craft fairs and things like that. And then just on...
In the US: look into cottage kitchen licensure laws from your state if you want to sell. Buying - farmers markets, local downtown shops, craft fairs and things like that. And then just on Facebook/Instagram
For kitchen/cooking/baking/grilling, I always check out America's Test Kitchen for their product recommendations. They also list where you can find the items for reasonable prices.
For kitchen/cooking/baking/grilling, I always check out America's Test Kitchen for their product recommendations. They also list where you can find the items for reasonable prices.
No problem! I've gotten so many things they've recommended over the last 24 years since I got into cooking and baking (and was able to convince my parents as a kid to let me buy), some of which...
No problem! I've gotten so many things they've recommended over the last 24 years since I got into cooking and baking (and was able to convince my parents as a kid to let me buy), some of which either I or someone in my family still owns! I remember before the internet was so in-depth and pervasive, I used to watch ATK on PBS after school so much that I was gifted the ATK baking book, and it's been my favorite resource ever since. It lives on my cookbook shelf, right along with my great grandma's handwritten notebook.
Yep. I trust that I'm getting the product I expect, and that it's far less likely to be subtly hazardous in some way, when I buy in a store. Shipping also sucks. I've had multiple orders from...
Yep. I trust that I'm getting the product I expect, and that it's far less likely to be subtly hazardous in some way, when I buy in a store.
Shipping also sucks. I've had multiple orders from Apple in the past year go missing, either an error/not caring on the part of the apartment office or DHL screwing up and losing the device for a solid month. I don't trust that I'll get things in a timely manner or at all. But I can walk into a store and buy something same-day.
It doesn't have to be about living in a rural area either. I live in a semi-urban suburban area. Traffic and traffic lights. It can be 30 minutes until I reach a nearby store.
Yes exactly, I live in a rural area, its about 30 mins to the nearest grocery store. Amazon was a game changer
It doesn't have to be about living in a rural area either. I live in a semi-urban suburban area. Traffic and traffic lights. It can be 30 minutes until I reach a nearby store.
That too. Maybe if stores had something other than shopping, like have dinner and also get your shopping done…. But they tried that and it was such a destination it made the parking a nightmare...
That too.
Maybe if stores had something other than shopping, like have dinner and also get your shopping done…. But they tried that and it was such a destination it made the parking a nightmare and people stopped going cause Amazon is easier than that nonsense.
So basically cars, cars are the problem. Again. Haha
I am not anti-car. I think services like Amazon could be less polluting and more energy efficient. Especially with the move to electric trucks. Instead of 11 people driving their cars to mega-mart...
I am not anti-car.
I think services like Amazon could be less polluting and more energy efficient. Especially with the move to electric trucks. Instead of 11 people driving their cars to mega-mart to get a spatula on a given day, you have one truck making an orderly circuit as it makes deliveries.
I don't think the issue with malls is that they were too good. You can still do that. You'd be hard pressed to find many suburban big box stores without a single restaurant in the same plaza. This...
I don't think the issue with malls is that they were too good.
You can still do that. You'd be hard pressed to find many suburban big box stores without a single restaurant in the same plaza. This feels like getting nostalgia for something that still exists.
My partner and I did the lunch-and-shopping thing today, and both places were in the same shopping center, but separated by a busy two lane road with no crosswalks such that it would have been...
My partner and I did the lunch-and-shopping thing today, and both places were in the same shopping center, but separated by a busy two lane road with no crosswalks such that it would have been incredibly unsafe if we tried to cross.
Its not that malls don’t exist, its that I have to get into a car to go to them and if I’m gonna do that I might as well just use Amazon which has all electric vehicles in my area and doesn’t require my entire afternoon.
I wouldn’t call it nostalgia, because the only time parking ever wasn’t a pain at a mall is when they were dying and no one was going to them. All the dead malls that I used to like are now closed and my only options are the incredibly busy pain in the ass ones.
The issue with malls is they had huge tax breaks that expired about the time that malls started to go caput. Rents got raised up too high right as online shopping took off. It was unsustainable At...
The issue with malls is they had huge tax breaks that expired about the time that malls started to go caput. Rents got raised up too high right as online shopping took off. It was unsustainable
This is why I am in such huge favor of mixed-use housing and more public transportation. We need to do better about these issues. I also live in a semi-urban suburban area, If not for the bodega a...
This is why I am in such huge favor of mixed-use housing and more public transportation. We need to do better about these issues. I also live in a semi-urban suburban area, If not for the bodega a few blocks away, my neighborhood would be considered a food desert. Any time I need to do most anything, except take the dog to the park across the street, I need to get into my car to drive, because I have mobility issues and won't be able to carry groceries or push a trolley the mile+ it takes to get to the store or the library or pharmacy, and we don't have enough public transportation to make it feasible for me.
I would describe it more as “avoiding local optima”… okay, maybe not the catchiest name, but it better contextualizes where I think the author has a point and where it doesn’t. For example, buying...
I would describe it more as “avoiding local optima”… okay, maybe not the catchiest name, but it better contextualizes where I think the author has a point and where it doesn’t.
For example, buying something local instead of online. Is that avoiding a local optima? What are you missing out, really?
On the other hand, compare staying home and playing video games vs going out with some people you’re not familiar with. The latter has all kinds of inconvenience - there’s travel, it might get really awkward, they may be horrible people. Video games have a high floor.
But you may be getting stuck in a local optima. Human relationships are things that are built, and are very rewarding when built, and to get there you have to endure meeting people you don’t resonate with and being in awkward annoying situations and having nights that were just bad and unenjoyable.
Convenience there is robbing yourself of a greater outcome.
Semi-related but I've been thinking about how AI chatbots are the most convenient form of social interaction, and how that has negative impacts in the long run, just like other forms of...
Semi-related but I've been thinking about how AI chatbots are the most convenient form of social interaction, and how that has negative impacts in the long run, just like other forms of convenience. They can talk the way you want them to, say the things you want them to say, talk about whatever you want to talk about, without having the inconvenience of having to get into an uncomfortable social interaction.
I saw a kid talking to Alexa more than he was talking to another kids when I was visiting someone and I wonder what world he'll grow up in. Alexa isn't even that good now. But there are already AI apps that promise romantic partners that many are already addicted to and prefer to talking to someone real.
The only valid application I see of this technology is using it to practice talking to real people, but considering we live in a world where attention is the currency and engagement is the main metric that's tracked and maximized, I don't see this changing.
Getting stuck in local optima is a good way to frame it -- though I might be biased since I'm a data scientist. I think the implications of that metaphor make more sense than just "convenience...
Getting stuck in local optima is a good way to frame it -- though I might be biased since I'm a data scientist. I think the implications of that metaphor make more sense than just "convenience bad" -- testing whether you're in a local optimum that you need to break out of doesn't entail that you're never already in the global optimum.
We don't live in a world that is convenient but in a world where the illusion of being convenient was weaponized against the integrity of the decision making process of an average person. In the...
We don't live in a world that is convenient but in a world where the illusion of being convenient was weaponized against the integrity of the decision making process of an average person.
In the cases where mainstream options are actually temporarily convenient it is there to funnel people away from possibilities that would be better(and more convenient) in the long term of to funnel people to options that are worse.
Case in point - smartphones. Our own personal tracking and marketing devices loaded with unwanted software and secured against the supposed owner in the name of security(but not against any random company that can pay to have their garbage ware preloaded). Full of popus, forced account registrations, bad control options, with software built around them being straight up malicious. Made convenient by the fact that society forces their use.
That is not to say that a pocket computer could not be convenient or cannot be made convenient, simply that the default options and the way their usage is forced is not.
Or many other software on real life things made "convenient" only by forcing their use, forcing things for which they have to be used or by destroying alternatives.
I do agree that being conciouss of this and to deliberately add friction to certain actions can be good for the person.
This article only makes sense if people are taking advantage of convenience and then using the saved time for leisure, thats not whats happening for most people though.
Most people spend 9 hours at work with an hour commute, then go home and do more work in the form of chores, and if Amazon didn’t exist they would just never make it to the store and Christmas would be ruined.
I can list good reasons to not use Amazon. I still do ( the alternatives just don't match up ), because of something similar to what you wrote. If I need a new spatula I can spend a few moments ordering it on Amazon and have it delivered to my door. The alternative is to use up ninety or more minutes of my time. Getting to a store, getting back, finding the spatulas, not having as good of a selection, checkout, parking, etc.
Ironically I have been finding the opposite is true nowadays. It used to be like this but Amazon has been filled with so many cheap knockoff terrible quality shit, finding stuff in stores has become better.
I enjoy baking but haven't done it in a long time. Last week I decided to pick it back up. Well I opened my flour and found flour bugs infesting it. Had to throw that away. Decided I should get an airtight container for flour, sugar, etc since I never bothered to get those when I moved to my new apartment.
I spent probably an hour browsing Amazon and searching for a quality product. I just wanted a simple sealed container that can hold a bag of flour and keep it safe from pests. Everything on Amazon was these cheap crappy containers, had poor reviews of them not sealing fully, or the latches breaking. People gave some good reviews for some name brand products but those were super expensive on Amazon. Like $50 for 2 containers.
Eventually said fuck it, since I needed new flour I would have to go to the store anyway, I ran out to Target, went to the kitchen section and found the exact product I saw recommended, 4 containers for $30. Grabbed that and my flour and was back home in half the time I spent trying to research what I could get on Amazon.
And I didn't have to wait for shipping, even though it probably would've arrived the next day, I had what I needed in half an hour. Would've been faster if I'd done that from the start.
Did the exact same thing for a different item a few days later and got something quicker from Target than trying to find what I wanted on Amazon.
This has 100% been my experience too. As long as it's a product I could find at a local store, the experience shopping locally is so much better.
In double irony, I find that there's now no solution to many of my shopping woes. I find that there is so much cheap garbage on Amazon it's pushing me towards trying to find local options. However, Amazon gutted local stores a decade ago and now the options are pretty limited (unless I want healing crystals... there are three stores very close to me that seem to be doing just fine selling overpriced rocks) or I go to a local store to find the exact same alibaba garbage being sold for more expensive than available on Amazon because many of the quality brands have gone out of business or have had to kill their own quality to stay competitive. So now online sucks and in store sucks. I can't believe Bezos figured out how to enshitify my actual life.
I haven't had that experience. I'm still finding a good selection of good products on Amazon. <insert my previous comment about using Amazon here>. :-). Glad you are back into baking as premade baked goods are at ridiculous prices now. :-)
I didn't even think about selling, it's just for myself and friends and family. I have a nasty sweet tooth. Where would people buy/sell homemade baked goods? Something I might look into
In the US: look into cottage kitchen licensure laws from your state if you want to sell. Buying - farmers markets, local downtown shops, craft fairs and things like that. And then just on Facebook/Instagram
I wasn't thinking about selling either. I was thinking that you would save a lot of money making your baked goods yourself. :-)
Oh gotcha, didn't catch that meaning. Yeah that makes a lot of sense
Only the U.S. Mint makes cents. :-)
For kitchen/cooking/baking/grilling, I always check out America's Test Kitchen for their product recommendations. They also list where you can find the items for reasonable prices.
Haven't done that before, I'll check it out, thanks!
No problem! I've gotten so many things they've recommended over the last 24 years since I got into cooking and baking (and was able to convince my parents as a kid to let me buy), some of which either I or someone in my family still owns! I remember before the internet was so in-depth and pervasive, I used to watch ATK on PBS after school so much that I was gifted the ATK baking book, and it's been my favorite resource ever since. It lives on my cookbook shelf, right along with my great grandma's handwritten notebook.
Yep. I trust that I'm getting the product I expect, and that it's far less likely to be subtly hazardous in some way, when I buy in a store.
Shipping also sucks. I've had multiple orders from Apple in the past year go missing, either an error/not caring on the part of the apartment office or DHL screwing up and losing the device for a solid month. I don't trust that I'll get things in a timely manner or at all. But I can walk into a store and buy something same-day.
Yes exactly, I live in a rural area, its about 30 mins to the nearest grocery store. Amazon was a game changer
It doesn't have to be about living in a rural area either. I live in a semi-urban suburban area. Traffic and traffic lights. It can be 30 minutes until I reach a nearby store.
That too.
Maybe if stores had something other than shopping, like have dinner and also get your shopping done…. But they tried that and it was such a destination it made the parking a nightmare and people stopped going cause Amazon is easier than that nonsense.
So basically cars, cars are the problem. Again. Haha
You are making me hungry for Swedish meatballs...
I am not anti-car.
I think services like Amazon could be less polluting and more energy efficient. Especially with the move to electric trucks. Instead of 11 people driving their cars to mega-mart to get a spatula on a given day, you have one truck making an orderly circuit as it makes deliveries.
? Plenty of grocery stores have hot bars and restaurants inside.
Malls, I was talking about malls.
Used to be you could go xmas shopping and then get dinner. It’d be a whole day.
I don't think the issue with malls is that they were too good.
You can still do that. You'd be hard pressed to find many suburban big box stores without a single restaurant in the same plaza. This feels like getting nostalgia for something that still exists.
My partner and I did the lunch-and-shopping thing today, and both places were in the same shopping center, but separated by a busy two lane road with no crosswalks such that it would have been incredibly unsafe if we tried to cross.
Its not that malls don’t exist, its that I have to get into a car to go to them and if I’m gonna do that I might as well just use Amazon which has all electric vehicles in my area and doesn’t require my entire afternoon.
I wouldn’t call it nostalgia, because the only time parking ever wasn’t a pain at a mall is when they were dying and no one was going to them. All the dead malls that I used to like are now closed and my only options are the incredibly busy pain in the ass ones.
The issue with malls is they had huge tax breaks that expired about the time that malls started to go caput. Rents got raised up too high right as online shopping took off. It was unsustainable
At least that's my understanding
This is why I am in such huge favor of mixed-use housing and more public transportation. We need to do better about these issues. I also live in a semi-urban suburban area, If not for the bodega a few blocks away, my neighborhood would be considered a food desert. Any time I need to do most anything, except take the dog to the park across the street, I need to get into my car to drive, because I have mobility issues and won't be able to carry groceries or push a trolley the mile+ it takes to get to the store or the library or pharmacy, and we don't have enough public transportation to make it feasible for me.
I would describe it more as “avoiding local optima”… okay, maybe not the catchiest name, but it better contextualizes where I think the author has a point and where it doesn’t.
For example, buying something local instead of online. Is that avoiding a local optima? What are you missing out, really?
On the other hand, compare staying home and playing video games vs going out with some people you’re not familiar with. The latter has all kinds of inconvenience - there’s travel, it might get really awkward, they may be horrible people. Video games have a high floor.
But you may be getting stuck in a local optima. Human relationships are things that are built, and are very rewarding when built, and to get there you have to endure meeting people you don’t resonate with and being in awkward annoying situations and having nights that were just bad and unenjoyable.
Convenience there is robbing yourself of a greater outcome.
Idk about buying paper towels in person, though.
Semi-related but I've been thinking about how AI chatbots are the most convenient form of social interaction, and how that has negative impacts in the long run, just like other forms of convenience. They can talk the way you want them to, say the things you want them to say, talk about whatever you want to talk about, without having the inconvenience of having to get into an uncomfortable social interaction.
I saw a kid talking to Alexa more than he was talking to another kids when I was visiting someone and I wonder what world he'll grow up in. Alexa isn't even that good now. But there are already AI apps that promise romantic partners that many are already addicted to and prefer to talking to someone real.
The only valid application I see of this technology is using it to practice talking to real people, but considering we live in a world where attention is the currency and engagement is the main metric that's tracked and maximized, I don't see this changing.
Getting stuck in local optima is a good way to frame it -- though I might be biased since I'm a data scientist. I think the implications of that metaphor make more sense than just "convenience bad" -- testing whether you're in a local optimum that you need to break out of doesn't entail that you're never already in the global optimum.
We don't live in a world that is convenient but in a world where the illusion of being convenient was weaponized against the integrity of the decision making process of an average person.
In the cases where mainstream options are actually temporarily convenient it is there to funnel people away from possibilities that would be better(and more convenient) in the long term of to funnel people to options that are worse.
Case in point - smartphones. Our own personal tracking and marketing devices loaded with unwanted software and secured against the supposed owner in the name of security(but not against any random company that can pay to have their garbage ware preloaded). Full of popus, forced account registrations, bad control options, with software built around them being straight up malicious. Made convenient by the fact that society forces their use.
That is not to say that a pocket computer could not be convenient or cannot be made convenient, simply that the default options and the way their usage is forced is not.
Or many other software on real life things made "convenient" only by forcing their use, forcing things for which they have to be used or by destroying alternatives.
I do agree that being conciouss of this and to deliberately add friction to certain actions can be good for the person.