I’m looking around, observing people. The movement, the pace, the bags, styles everything – much like most people I like to watch others.
The reason why I watch is that I’m trying to understand human behaviour. I studied the subject briefly at college before making an adult education course of my own through the observation of myself.
I have many questions about our motivation in life as generally it’s about survival. Some of us can thrive, some of us are floating but a great deal are just treading water, keep their heads above water so when I speak to people about this feeling and where it’s coming from, the common response is that we are all so busy, time poor, money poor, health poor just feeling poor.
The part I don’t understand which I know we’ve all heard before, is with all this tech that is supposed to save us so much time and make our lives easier why does it not feel that way?
My answer to this is that unless you set a saving aside, no matter what it is – money, time, food, unless you don’t touch the saving and literally leave a space where someone once was, you haven’t saved a thing – you’ve simply transferred it.
For example, time, if something has supposedly saved you time, unless you do nothing in that time you’ve simple made time for something else but not saved it, you’ve proportioned it differently. The same goes for money unless you bank/set aside the money that you have ‘saved’ on a purchase, again you haven’t saved it you’ve simply transferred it to something you feel is more worthy, more deserving.
Online retailers have promised ease, and speed as a beneficial feature of this method of shopping, being able to find whatever you need. It opens buyers to new markets, you can shop from business all over the world – when we’re not championing the buy local narrative…
This has been a revelation to a degree, however when most people seek a seller/business that’s in the UK it looks like that great selling feature isn’t that necessary after all. Then there’s the time factor, speedy of delivery. This has been something that we have all seen the consequences of over the past few years, items left, thrown, stollen and damaged. However much like my question in many of my other posts, do we really need to be able to order something in the day and it arrive later that day? It’s like going to the shops but without all the other benefits because trust me going out to the shops has many many benefits:
You’re spending locally which helps your local business and communities thrive, leading to investments in these businesses making the experience more pleasant, which encourages people to shop more creating busier businesses which leads to more jobs – and that’s just one reason.
You’re affectively spreading wealth, don’t we all want some of that?
If we look at the major easy shopping providers – we’re know who they are, Amazon, ebay and Google, I suppose TikTok as well these days.
Amazon a company in my opinion for many years has been the oxygen of retail – much like oxygen’s effects on the human body, it’s gives us life, while slowly killing us.
It's gives us life while slowly killing us.
From the moment I couldn’t search and find most of my usual suppliers through google but found them through Amazon, I knew something was very wrong. I know how it works, if I have to go through Amazon the actual business that is supplying them must be losing a little or a lot for their ‘help’ in selling.
It appears as though over the years our options for discovering new items is becoming smaller and smaller – there are other options such as instagram, TikTok shops and some completely independent luxury brands but for the majority Amazon has become the go to.
So I ask this question, what have they/Jeff done to deserve so much of your money?
Is the ease that the platform offers worth it? I mean most businesses can almost match the delivery times of them now for standard orders – because, think about it do you really need something that urgently? Could the time we have been better spent because we know it wasn’t saved otherwise we wouldn’t need everything so urgently.
Jeff Bezos is worth over 200 billion dollars. Pause. Read that sum again, 200 BILLION dollars.
It’s nuts. This is not about hating on success or wealth but when I see these crazy rich people not doing what they can with their money we are giving them, it makes we think, do they deserve it?
What has the business done for you that is worth so much of your attention? Is that ease worth it or real? You’re often still spending so much time comparing prices, reviews, items… you might as well go to a good retailer who’s done the sourcing for you.
The company in my opinion feels like the smart but slightly righteous and cocky person in a meeting. First they’re funny and witty, their intellect is useful – but after a while once they’ve secured the attention and all, and told everyone to only listen to them because they can do everything better than everyone else, is when they start to appear annoying and greedy for the spotlight, that’s when you begin to question whether you even like them.
The way I see it, is that I don’t think they deserve to have so much of your money, other smaller businesses could do with some of it too. Spending your money on other businesses could have a greater affect on the change that we all want to see – a fairer life. As we know the workers who have been delivery the features that have won our attention are slowly being made redundant, that could be someone we know, it could you us however if we spent with the smaller businesses we could provide them with the jobs that have been lost – if we just share our spend and think about that major question, do they deserve so much of our money?
I think someone who’s worth over 200 billion dollars won’t miss a few million but I know the rest of the world would appreciate it.
If he won’t share it, you share it, make a point of spending somewhere else, use your time differently, because we know where not really saving it – so go a little further to a local shop, walk to it, walk to more, count your steps and get a work out at the same time.
I realise I may be romanticising a little and not taking into account the reality of social dynamics that make life easier like family near by but this is a small change that can make a use difference.
Move away from the lure of ease because the consequence to society to great.
