That's why I'm curious... I feel like people figured out how to do this in the past in a cost effective way (even including delivery!) but then we somehow move

That's why I'm curious... I feel like people figured out how to do this in the past in a cost effective way (even including delivery!) but then we somehow moved away to something (arguably) worse. My hypothesis here would be perhaps the increasing abundance of choice makes it inefficient, since the main drawback I recall was that there was just like 1-2 local providers that handled each type of thing rather than like the 4 brands of milk we get at supermarkets today [in the US]. Though, I can't see why modern supply chains couldn't be refitted to handle this? E.g. your package delivery person / mailman also recovers the reusable containers etc.