Our unhealthy need for instant gratification is a race to the bottom
An interesting article in The Atlantic, “America’s need for speed never ends well”, provides a highly readable account of our growing obsession for ever-faster food deliveries, to the point that our need for instant gratification means that we consume take-aways more quickly than they take to arrive.
Where’s the sense in getting food delivered in fifteen minutes, which in many cases we then leave in its box unopened for hours? The problem is that fast delivery is built into the value proposition of more and more services, so we simply don’t think about it, seeing it as normal.
How did we get here? From the Pony Express, the mail service across the United States in the late 19th century that recruited literally “young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18 [… ] willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred”, to Domino’s in the 1990s, first promising a free pizza if the delivery took more than half an hour, then replacing the pledge with a $3 discount, but establishing the 30-minute deadline.
Among the downsides to this instant gratification are the warehouses, dark kitchens and dark stores operating out of neighborhoods on the peripheries of cities that often create a nuisance, not to mention the working conditions of the people who deliver our stuff, whether by bike or van, along…
