Amazon is, once again, in the news, this time as it gears up to disrupt with 1-Day Prime Shipping. Wait, two days wasn’t fast enough?, was my reflexive response. Forgive me. I know I’m supposed to be amazed by everything Amazon does. Everyone else sure seems to be. How is 1-Day shipping even possible?, we can all wonder (or Google it if you want to know the sad reality). Or just go ahead and jump on the bandwagon, brought to you by the Public Relations department at Amazon. What an incredible feat of logistics, after all! What an amazing time we live in!!
Of course, if I have any conscience, I should rather be aghast—wouldn’t you think?—by how many thousand more Amazon warehouse employees will consequently be inhumanely stressed to the point of breaking (and ultimately replaced by robots, truth be told). By how many more local brick-and-mortar stores will be put out of business, forced to shutter and lay people off. By how insanely much more fossil fuel will be burned as we collectively agree to put our last-minute shopping habit pedal to the metal.
And all this so that you or I can have our coveted purchase (of slippers? Vitamin C? herbal tea?) many days sooner than we actually need it—or, if we’re to be completely honest, even want it?? No doubt, some very small number of us will be genuinely thankful not to have to wait by the front window throughout that grueling, final 24-hour countdown to delivery truck and doorbell. The question then becomes, why should the rest of us care about these pitiable souls?
This whole 1-Day Amazon Prime Shipping process might be miraculous if it weren’t so terribly superfluous. When (and more importantly, why??) did shipping on steroids suddenly become so important to US? I don’t recall anyone ever asking me if I needed to receive all of my mail orders the next day. Like most of us (responsible people), I never had a problem planning my purchases ahead a week or two. And then if, for whatever reason, speedy delivery did become an urgent matter, I had no problem with the concept of paying for Expedited Shipping. But how in the world could anyone think that everyday expedited shipping is in any way sustainable?
More broadly, can capitalism exist in a bubble of freedom without responsibility? Should I (or Jeff Bezos) be able to have whatever I want, without regard to the true costs involved in getting it? If I can extract global resources without limit (other than my ability to pay for it), do I then have license to spoil our planet? If I can get desperate people to slave and sacrifice their very lives for me while I rake in record-breaking profits and use it to buy mansions that fill a whole city block in Washington, D.C., (and, naturally, write about it all so favorably in my very own national newspaper!) should I be considered a hero of business or menace to society?
I don’t get it. At all. Beyond having everything you need (and if that’s you, MY GOD!, consider yourself unbelievably blessed, as I do!), how does any more OR any quicker make your life any better for you? Especially if you know that it makes other peoples’ lives so much worse?
Admittedly, I have been out of step with the mainstream of society most all of my adult life. So it should be no surprise to you, then, that my reaction to all of this frenzied shopping and shipping is to intentionally slow things down big time. To chill. For my sake and for others.
Specifically, now when I place an order with Amazon Prime (yes, sadly, I’m still searching for an alternative) and have the choice of slowing my shipment down by days or even a week—even without a free digital download as an enticement to do so—I go ahead and choose the “NO RUSH” option, instead. I figure it does me no good to get my goods quicker than I need them.
I know. I’m crazy not to get the full benefit of my Prime membership by choosing Free 2-Day or Next-Day Shipping. That’s what I would have thought, at least, before I got a glimpse inside that Amazon warehouse. And see every day how humans are screwing up this planet–and other people–because we’re just not paying close enough attention to the end result of our daily choices, including Amazon Prime.
