Cheap becomes a driving force that undermines quality. Especially if you don't have a comfortable income. It's prevalent in clothing, home goods, services and food. I pay attention to the horrible effects of fast fashion and the efforts being made to move away from it, but so much of the support for these bad systems comes from people who don't have other options. It's a big beast to kill if that's even possible at this time.
And, to some extent, we all participate. I know I do.
The sad part, again, is the lack of choice and the reality that reducing options due to what amounts to design is a large part of why the US is in the pickle that it's in.
My wife doesn’t mind doing errands, including driving to do them. What she loves about Costco is saving money. I wish she would prioritize shopping near home more, including walking or biking to do it, but so far the money-saving has kept her driving to Costco 🙄
Cost is certainly a factor, which really sucks. The idea that choice — your options — are constrained by such major and basically immovable factors (geography, design, national priority, cost) is sad. People aren't necessarily choosing certain options, they're forced into them.
Our lives are often time-challenged. If your neighbourhood does not have all the shops you need, then there is an errand to be done to go and buy what you need. That is why even Europeans drive to the supermarket.
Let's say you live in a suburb and work in the city, with a 30 min commute, or more. Opening times and your work hours mean you might buy something from the small "express" brand of your favourite supermarket on the way home. But there are still bulkier and heavier items to sort out and maybe some frozen foods too. Anyway, those are things which are less easy to do on your way home from work. In our old home in a village near Zurich, we lived on the top of a hill. A schlepp up or a bus ride; neither of those conducive to shopping on the way home.
So, for some people, the run to the out-of-town big place is ultimately an attempt at optimising for time. Others just use home delivery.
I would agree wth a general thrust that design does drive behaviour. Sometimes though behaviour is a function of services, geography and working hours.
Cheap becomes a driving force that undermines quality. Especially if you don't have a comfortable income. It's prevalent in clothing, home goods, services and food. I pay attention to the horrible effects of fast fashion and the efforts being made to move away from it, but so much of the support for these bad systems comes from people who don't have other options. It's a big beast to kill if that's even possible at this time.
And, to some extent, we all participate. I know I do.
The sad part, again, is the lack of choice and the reality that reducing options due to what amounts to design is a large part of why the US is in the pickle that it's in.
My wife doesn’t mind doing errands, including driving to do them. What she loves about Costco is saving money. I wish she would prioritize shopping near home more, including walking or biking to do it, but so far the money-saving has kept her driving to Costco 🙄
Cost is certainly a factor, which really sucks. The idea that choice — your options — are constrained by such major and basically immovable factors (geography, design, national priority, cost) is sad. People aren't necessarily choosing certain options, they're forced into them.
And then we end up with impossibly large quantities of certain items (e.g. salad greens) that we can’t finish while they’re still fresh 🤨
I'd add some nuance to this:
Our lives are often time-challenged. If your neighbourhood does not have all the shops you need, then there is an errand to be done to go and buy what you need. That is why even Europeans drive to the supermarket.
Let's say you live in a suburb and work in the city, with a 30 min commute, or more. Opening times and your work hours mean you might buy something from the small "express" brand of your favourite supermarket on the way home. But there are still bulkier and heavier items to sort out and maybe some frozen foods too. Anyway, those are things which are less easy to do on your way home from work. In our old home in a village near Zurich, we lived on the top of a hill. A schlepp up or a bus ride; neither of those conducive to shopping on the way home.
So, for some people, the run to the out-of-town big place is ultimately an attempt at optimising for time. Others just use home delivery.
I would agree wth a general thrust that design does drive behaviour. Sometimes though behaviour is a function of services, geography and working hours.