What we lose when we make convenience king.
Or: keeping the friction that makes up the meaning.
I made chocolate chip cookies with my 8 yo yesterday. We left them in a bit too long so they’re a bit crispy and the scoops of a little hand created cookies of uneven shapes and sizes.
Still - they were delicious. And they were ours.
They were not, though, the perfectly round, perfectly medium texture of the Starbucks cookie I saw in the case today.
Nor could it have been. Part of the burden of being big, is consistency. Efficiency. Reliability.
I understand why Starbucks cookies are quite literally cookie-cutter. Still, there is a price to pay in the world for what happens when the consistency of Starbucks cookies overtakes the uniqueness and variability of a neighborhood bakery.
What happens to consumer tastes and expectations when all we see and get in the world are these perfectly spherical, slightly chewy, slightly crispy, middle of the road chocolate chip cookies. There is delight borne of expectation, but little delight of serendipity.
The first time kids make their own cookies they labor under a false expectation of perfection. When we actually go a local bakery and get an uneven experience across their scones or cookies, we might have a fission of frustration and disappointment. When we impact biodiversity because the sheer scale of sameness required by McDonald’s apple slices means that now there are fewer species of apples being grown in the name of consistency and perfection.
It’s not just cookies or apples.
Take Instacart for example. Because of this convenience driving innovation, so many of us don’t have to shlep to the grocery store each weekend to get the week’s provisions. At least a hour saved - and while my girls were young, I thought, a savior of parents.
But quickly I realized - my girls were completely missing out on a foundational experience. It’s not for every family, but for ours, food is a central pillar. Just like travel. And so, even though it’s highly inconvenient, I’ve taken the girls to the grocery store and taught them out to pick out ripe avocados and to smell pineapples. How to weigh produce and how to price compare two boxes of cereal. Now that they’re older, they have a part in choosing the week’s meals and their school lunches and seeing what goes into them.
We’ve also travelled internationally with the girls since they were each babies. Sleepless flights, jet-lagged babes at 3am in hotel lobbies. Rental car mishaps and cranky afternoon kids. But nothing beats the joys of showing them Paris for the first time. Of biking along the canals in Amsterdam like locals. Of haggling in a market in Spanish in Mexico.
They are now seasoned travelers who can pack their bags and their passports on a moments notice and see it all with a sense of adventure.
It’s all been very inconvenient. But necessary for us. To the things that are important to our family.
But that’s the thing I’ve realized over the slow motion years of Covid. I don’t want a life of convenience. Of perfection. I want a life of meaning and purpose. And that is messy. And imperfect.
Treadmill of More
Except that all around us, we’re surrounded by those who “win” by pursuing the opposite.
The societies of the past couple hundred years have been driven by principles of productivity. Efficiency. Convenience.
And it’s been fruitful. Millions have been lifted out of poverty. The standard of living of billions includes houses filled with timesaving appliances and entertaining gadgets.
Companies have embraced best practice after best practice - Kaizen, division of labor, agile … all in the efforts to outcompete, outproduce.
Jobs have gone from that of individual craft to a specialized piece of the value chain.
Greater for the whole - but is it greater for the individual?
We’ve all gotten wealthier (on absolute terms). But what of purpose? Sure we can make more sofas in a day in a factory that one person could by hand.
We have more dollars to spend and we’re supposed to have more time. And yet that’s not the case. Most of us find ourselves on a treadmill of more.
Today, mobile ordering at Starbucks is one of their most successful and profitable initiatives. It’s considered win-win because consumers can order and don’t have to wait and it’s lead to greater sales and efficiency. Over 2/3 of orders are now made via mobile, drive-thru or delivery.
Only at what cost?
For the place that coined and imagined the “3rd place”, it’s hard not to think of what has been trade off.
We no longer know the barista behind the bar. We don’t pause to make small talk with the people in the line. Of course Covid had a big part in this shift but the impact remains.
And this convenience comes at a cost - of the beautiful, messy, imperfect human moments.
Because of Amazon, I no longer see shopkeepers. Because of Doordash I don’t see the proprietor of the Subway or the server at a restaurant. Because of Peleton I no longer meet others at my yoga class or get to know the instructor.
My life is getting increasingly dialed to what I think I want to fill my minutes with but it all feels somehow less, not more.
And my gut hunch is that our race towards convenience in all facets of our lives has very real costs.
Becoming choosy consumers of convenience
So where does that leave us?
I think back at the first principles of: choose what matters, convenience away the rest.
I think convenience is incredible. The fact that I have the option to Instacart on a week where both of us are traveling or to mobile order my coffee when I’m running late after school drop-off.
But I don’t think we can or should be blind consumers of convenience on everything.
If gardening or cooking or traveling or working out or whatever is important, then resist the urge to fit it into as small a time box as possible.
Instead, think back to the “big rocks” principle. Figure out what the big rocks are in your life and let those ride, as fully and as inconveniently as can be.
Then, for the pebbles and the sand, Amazon/ Doordash / Starbucks away all of those.
Human meaning in the age of AI convenience
We are entering a phase of untold consumer options, especially spurred on by the advantages and ability of AI.
But as fast as those options are coming, we have to just as aggressively figure out what role we want these agents of convenience to play for us.
It’s easy to say: “Oh, wouldn’t it be amazing to just have an AI order my groceries” - but is that what we really want?
Technically, this is not going to be hard. All the building blocks will the there shortly - everything from having cameras in the fridge and pantry take pictures of what’s there, figuring out the week’s meal plan, adding the necessary groceries and hitting order.
It’s all doable. But where does that leave us on the very human meaning of meals?
Of the cultural magic that goes into wanting to make a meal, knowing what goes into it, going to the market to get each thing, of the therapeutic process of cooking and of the conversation over a family meal?
That won’t be the important thing for everyone. But it is for me.
So here lies the choices each of us will have to make for our own selves. Our own families.
Looking back on the years, so much of what we would say is meaningful likely wasn’t very convenient. Time with family or a girls’ weekend. Spending time on the baseball diamond or coaching a new hire.
So before we make convenience king - set to reign over us, unchallenged and unbidden, let’s pause for a minute to figure out if that’s what we really want.
Because those perfectly round chocolate chip cookies are perfectly fine. But to me, the misshapen, slightly crispy ones waiting for me at home taste a little sweeter.
That’s so true...life is getting more cookie cutter, more standardized, more online at the cost of the human connection, the life experience, the uneven beauty of it.