15 ms·

The Shut-In Economy

447 points by killwhitey 12y ago

anigbrowl 12y ago
Van Ekert’s answer: “It’s more to dedicate more time to working.” With the arrival of every functionary serving as a reminder of what could happen if you slow down your pace on the treadmill. This article makes me glad I don't live in SF any more.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  There's an episode of the show Black Mirror that makes this very very obvious.
  - unfunco 12y ago
    For those wondering, I think the episode that copsarebastards is referring to is called 15 Million Merits.
niels_olson 12y ago
The Albert service seems ripe for abuse. People unknown entering your home? At least a full time maid is a traceable person... Seems like the opportunities for an airbnb-style break-in are rampant.
- etjossem 12y ago
  As I understand it, these are actual employees of Alfred. No different from any other person you let into your home to do work.
beachstartup 12y ago
> “We’re trying to remove the taboo and the guilt that you should have to do it,” says Alfred’s CEO every time i use one of these services i feel a bit guilty. twofold; guilty that i have someone literally serving me, and that i'm too lazy to do it myself. i still use them occasionally though. laundry every 2 weeks because i don't have in-unit, and occasional food delivery when i'm feeling especially lazy - i try to just call local restaurants directly though. i also stopped using homejoy because quite frankly it felt too weird to have someone cleaning my tiny place for me. > When signing up, customers can choose the option of not seeing their Alfred haha. wow. i guess that's one way of dealing with it.
- bbcbasic 12y ago
  I do too, although there is no reason to really. You outsource when you pay for anything - from tax to broccoli! The only way to escape is to learn how to go money-free and feral!
  - saiya-jin 12y ago
    there is a nice, wide middle path you know. outsourcing something I cannot do properly/safely/takes me a lot of time and I don't want to go through learning curve - that's OK. outsourcing something that i can do in couple of (tens of) minutes - that's being lazy. no way around it.
    - bbcbasic 12y ago
      Lazy is not a bad thing. Sloth is not a sin. If someone works 40 hours a week I think it is fair dinkum.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  This isn't criticism, just curiosity: do you feel guilty when you pay someone to cut your hair or dispose of your garbage (assuming the latter service isn't included in your housing... that varies, of course). Those are both things that would have been done by servants in the past, but that most people still have done today rather than doing themselves. One advantage of having a buzz cut is that it's easy to cut my own hair, but when I had another hair style I didn't feel guilty about getting it cut. I hated that it consumed my time, but that's another thing.
  - nness 12y ago
    Getting a haircut, or getting disposalists to handle rubbish, are both professions which require a degree of training and experience. I'm paying for a service I could not do myself. I feel like having a person deliver food or do my laundry is at the other side of the spectrum. I can do both things, and its obvious that those who are working in those jobs roles are not in the economic bracket to afford it themselves.
lnlyplnt 12y ago
As a Current Alfred customer in NYC I can say that the service has been a huge help, and not in the "shut in" way suggested by this article. Having my laundry, groceries and packages taken care of for me allows me to maximize my weekends. I think one of the other reasons Alfred is so useful is that it removes 100% of the cognitive load of chores. Services like flycleaners and instacart are actually only marginally helpful since the user still needs to think about laundry and groceries.
- blackguardx 12y ago
  This is such a glowing review that it almost seems like an advertisement. If/when I get customers, I hope they are this positive about my business.
  - lnlyplnt 12y ago
    I can assure you that I am no shill. One thing I will say is that it took a few weeks to get everything "in the flow" (socks go in this drawer, wash this but not that etc) , but once they know your routine it's quite incredible to watch everything happen on autopilot.
sowhatquestion 12y ago
I don't have the historical knowledge to do it myself, but it would be fascinating to read an in-depth comparison between these services and the economy of servants in the 19th or early-20th century. The image in my head (from movies and books and reading [about] Piketty) is that the wealthy in earlier eras were more idle, living off rents rather than incomes. I imagine servants would have been more of a status symbol for them, whereas today's upper-middle-class strivers see them as more of a necessity "to dedicate more time to working." I wonder, is that as close as we get to progress, under capitalism? I.e., if we're going to have servants, the people employing them today have a somewhat less dubious reason for doing so than their ancestors?
- ninguem2 12y ago
  I don't think servants were just status symbols. Cooking, cleaning and laundry without appliances was a very time consuming job which probably occupied the days of the wife and daughters of a family with no servants. Add to that inconvenient shopping, clothes mending, child care.
  - IkmoIkmo 12y ago
    Yep, your comment reminds me of the $3500 shirt: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-lesson-in.html http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-l...
  - sowhatquestion 12y ago
    You're absolutely right. I'm not sure why this didn't come to mind immediately. I guess I was just trying to get at the distinction between people employing servants in order to enjoy more leisure vs. employing them in order to have more time to work.
- brc 12y ago
  Why do you think serving is an undeserving job? Each person being paid to do some type of task has a job. That is better than being unemployed. It's wrong to make value judgements on the way people make money in an honest job. A person in the 19th century who had a job as a servant at least had a job, and what was considered respectable as well. The alternatives were far, far worse, like getting caught for petty theft and shipped to a colony.
irascible 12y ago
I was a shut in before it was cool...
- saiya-jin 12y ago
  it's not cool...
joezydeco 12y ago
I'm curious as to what's going to happen when this group starts having babies. Time to write a business plan I guess.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  Hmm... it seems to me that childcare is another of the "formerly done by servants" things that people have never stopped outsourcing to others. That's not saying there's not an opportunity there. Daycare operations still seem to be mostly "artisanal", or at least operating on a fairly small scale. The big problem you're going to face is that people are incredibly protective of their children (and rightly so... those who aren't haven't left their genes behind :-)). Food is pretty personal, but most people will think nothing of stopping into a strange restaurant and eating the food, but they would never drop off their kids at a random storefront.
  - saiya-jin 12y ago
    seeing its parents so rarely, they wouldn't be exactly a role model parents for their kids. could be much worse, or course, but having kids is arguably the most important thing in lives of many people, so if doing it, let's do it properly and raise (at least try hard, i mean HARD) a confident, balanced issue-free happy people. i've got the feeling this planet & mankind needs more of those compared to uber-competitive self-centered workoholics.
prostoalex 12y ago
> They released a study monitoring the social behavior of 169 people making their first forays online. The web-surfers started talking less with family and friends ... Does that factor in the amount of communication happening online via messengers, chats or just Facebook comments on someone's live events? It seems that at least portion of this communication has shifted online, not got supplanted by online.
nazgulnarsil 12y ago
Shaming introverts. Nothing like hitting someone who can't fight back.
- saiya-jin 12y ago
  I am an itnrovert, but believe me, what this article describes (albeit maybe a bit overblown) is a sad story even from my perspective. Introvert != being inside surrounded by 4 walls. In fact, for people like me, being in nature & mountains, alone or with friends, has amazing mental soothing effects
Procrastes 12y ago
It seems the obvious unserved need here is a way to outsource the actual work. Maybe I can create a business model around sending someone to your job to act as your proxy. InstaLackey.com and ImposterPool.com are both available... * I have to admit that I just spent five minutes struggling with the urge to build a MVP instead of hitting "Add Comment."
redwood 12y ago
Anyone else having trouble with Medium articles this week --- menu items transparently displaying over the article? (Android/"internet" app)
cafebeen 12y ago
An interesting article, but I wonder about the parts about social class. They argue that "social class can be defined by the chores you don’t do" and that "luxuries usually afforded to one-percenters now stretch to the urban upper-middle class". Presumably these people are still working jobs to pay for their lifestyle (perhaps spending their freed up time working), and one person's job is another person's chore. Is the difference is that tech workers tend to enjoy their jobs?
tsotha 12y ago
>So here’s the big question. What does she, or you, or any of us do with all this time we’re buying? Binge on Netflix shows? Go for a run? Van Ekert’s answer: “It’s more to dedicate more time to working.” Meh. It's specialization. It's been happening since everyone figured out Og makes better clubs than everyone else and he'll make you one if you give him food. Most of the people reading this site have a skill that brings in $50+ per hour. Why not pay someone to clean your bathroom and use that time for working?
- timepiece 12y ago
  Now you make $50/hour, wait till commoditization hit your profession and see your wage dwindle before your own eyes.
  - oh_sigh 12y ago
    Presumably the people delivering groceries or doing someone elses laundry weren't making $50/hour in the same profession at some earlier point in their career.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      but at least they had a tad more job security and weren't being misclassified as contractors (so had less tax burden)
      - oh_sigh 12y ago
        But these jobs just didn't exist(unless you count full time maids for example), so it doesn't make sense to talk about job security or whether they were contractors or not.
        danans 12y ago
        I'm not sure we have enough data yet to say whether the people doing these jobs previously did or didn't have better paying or more secure jobs. Anecdotally, there are many people whose income and job security have severely declined, and who been relegated to low payed variable-workforce service jobs. I don't know to what extent people like that are represented among the taskrabbit-type service workers.
mooreds 12y ago
How is this different than me hiring a handyman to put up the shelves bought 2 months ago that I never found the time to put up? Is it different in scale or in kind?
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  In kind... probably not. Perhaps if you'd have said 'fix some electric work that I couldn't do', in that case it'd be different as this article describes work that anyone could do. e.g. they'll talk about expensive $5.000 a month apartments having awesome functional kitchens installed, yet everyone orders food. In scale... well the handyman is a one time thing. But it seems a lot of new tech workers making $100k a year are fine spending $5k on ordering dinner 5 days a week for $20. That's kind of weird compared to all the centuries before. But at some point it might become more like the drycleaner: a service outside your home that's more expensive, but more convenient and not necessarily much fun. Perhaps cooking will become a once a week hobby type of thing, with everyday food not becoming a case of preparing lunch or dinner, but rather a case of choosing fashionable and exotic lunch or dinner, much like shopping for clothing. Who knows.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    Plenty of non tech workers order food every night for dinner. Plenty of non tech workers have cleaning services. That has existed for 40+ years. Changing it from phone ordering to online ordering doesn't change it that much. Grocery delivery and some of the other things are a bit newer, but they are also more niche. What has changed is the employment relationship between the people doing the work and the companies. You used to hire a cleaning company and they had employees that came out, now you hire an independent contractor via Handy. To me it seems all supply side and not really demand side. This article is all about the demand side.
hoboon 12y ago
This is how I feel. I don't watch TV for hours like I did as a child. What I do now is worse; stay in doors programming, browsing the web aimlessly, or staring at the ceiling. I don't blame my internet lifestyle for this really, but I literally don't know what else to do and the internet is so accommodating to me being a shut-in. I know I'm wasting my life but I don't know how to stop. San Francisco is a beautiful city but it is wasted on me and I feel like I should feel guilty for that. I don't deserve this nice city; it belongs to creative people. Trying to leave the house to do anything interesting takes herculean efforts. I can't find joy or interest in anything beyond an intellectual level. Everyday sometimes feels like it's worse than the last. I'm trapped in an un-ending present where I grow older but never grow as a person. ps - anything you have to suggest is something i've heard already x10 and have or currently trying, such as therapy.
- initself 12y ago
  Perhaps meditation is what you need, so you can enjoy the un-ending present AND grow as a person! http://dhamma.org http://dhamma.org
- moultano 12y ago
  PS aside, you might find that walking aimlessly satisfies the same itch as browsing aimlessly, but you feel better at the end of it.
  - GuiA 12y ago
    Yes. Cannot overstate how important that is. I've started taking random 10-15 minute walks throughout the day at work (leaving my phone on my desk), and it's a great way to clear your mind and relax a bit.
  - jchrisa 12y ago
    +1 walking http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Détournement http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Détournement [edit] Meant this link http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm
- yequalsx 12y ago
timepiece 12y ago
Good job Lauren ... I really enjoyed reading the article ... NYT caliber indeed but I wish that you could give more space to workers so they could express their points of view regarding the whole situation.
- pauldbau 12y ago
  Seconded - there are some interesting/challenging social dilemmas ahead for the 1st world in particular.
femto 12y ago
> Many services promote themselves as life-expanding — there > to free up your time so you can spend it connecting with > the people you care about, not standing at the post > office with strangers. Rinse’s ad shows a couple chilling > at a park, their laundry being washed by someone, > somewhere beyond the picture’s frame. A case of letting the destination (free time for socialising) overrule the journey (social interaction in your everyday life)? For example, if you go to a laundromat regularly or catch a bus regularly, you eventually end up seeing the same people and might even end up making friends with them. Maybe even good enough friends that you coordinate your journeys/tasks in order to catch up? Getting philosophical, an awful lot of things, including life, can be viewed in terms of "nodes and edges". In the case of life, why put so much emphasis on the nodes (the goal) whilst most of your time is spent on the edges (the journeys)?
- JohnBooty 12y ago
  > For example, if you go to a laundromat regularly or > catch a bus regularly, you eventually end up seeing the > same people and might even end up making friends with > them. Maybe even good enough friends that you coordinate > your journeys/tasks in order to catch up? You can make friends anywhere. Even in stores! My mother met one of her best friends when she was a customer at the supermarket where her friend worked. And that's cool when it happens, but come on. It's pretty rare. Even in a small town, everybody-knows-each-other kind of place. Stuff like that has got to be one of the worst ways to make friends ever. Compare that with the amount of friends one makes by doing volunteer work, joining a book club, going to local meetups, going to a dog park, etc. You want to make friends, do volunteer work. The sort of people who do volunteer work are (duh) generally great people. The worst thing that can happen is that you don't make any friends but you still do some good stuff for the world.
  - yojo 12y ago
    I think it's not just friendship, it's a feeling of connectedness and community that comes from knowing people in your neighborhood and being known. For five years I lived in a rundown SF unit with no laundry on site. Every week my wife and I would drop our clothes at a nearby family run wash and fold. Over years of little interactions we started to develop a semblance of friendship and real fondness for the owner. Twice a week I got a nice pleasant/personal experience, and that was from outsourcing a single chore. I also use services like Sprig/Google Shopping Express/Amazon Prime, because they are awesome, convenient, and cheap. But as a result I rarely buy from the nearby corner store, and have not developed personal connections from any of these transactions. I have saved money and time, but it has cost me in social satisfaction. I'm not sure how I feel about that. As you point out, there might be active interventions to try and replace this connection (e.g. volunteering), but the default has shifted from "get to know the people around you through transactions" to "receive goods and services anonymously."
timepiece 12y ago
The lingering question for me now seems to be if these people can afford purchasing the services of Alfred & Co, why didn't they pick or hire a maid to do all the domestic chores & errands for them???
postmeta 12y ago
I think the intelligentsia do better when they have some manual labor in their lives too. I posit that the gig economy is just a modern take on classism and indentured servitude. We would be better served to improve robotics, automation and efficiency rather than grow a servant class (again).
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  Amen. America would be a better country if even richies had to scrub a toilet now and then (or alternatively, if robots also scrubbed poor peoples' toilets for them). We could use a good dose of humility.
- zem 12y ago
  whenever i read articles like this, i can't help but think how much beneficial pressure a basic income would exert on a system like this. when no one has to do your unpleasant/tedious tasks because it's that or starve, there's suddenly an incentive for those jobs to pay much more, or be automated as efficiently as possible. i can see a post-basic-income equivalent of instacart, for example, being the one person who goes out and does grocery shopping for an entire building, but gets a lot of their other chores done for them as a quid pro quo.
- Dirlewanger 12y ago
  The parallels between the gig economy and the increasing specialization in the First Industrial Revolution are sickening, and it's only going to get worse.
marcosdumay 12y ago
As a Brazilian I can say: welcome to an unequal society, US. Yes, that's one of the symptoms, and if you look at the lives of those people serving, it's hearth-breaking.
zkhalique 12y ago
Think about all this specialization. This is what a "good economy" looks like. Parents who work long hours so they can afford to rent some great apartment and buy stuff for their family. They outsource a lot of the childcare to professional nannies or whoever. They outsource a lot of the elder care to nursing homes etc. People are getting married later in life so they can focus on their career. Individualism, kids moving out early, trying to impress each other with great apartments etc. We are materially richer, but what about the social connections? Similarly with technology. Take birthdays, for example. On their birthday people used to get personal phone calls, possibly emails. Then facebook made it easy to just write "happy birthday" on someone's wall, and see who else wrote it. Then, to increase "engagement" (or the appearance thereof), they let you write a quick note right where the birthday reminder appeared, on the right-hand pane. Now you couldn't even see what others wrote, and sometimes would breeze through, personalizing the greetings slightly "Happy birthday girl! Older and sexier they say." Now, people are complaining that they have to get through so many birthday wishes on their wall and write a semi-personalized "thanks" response to each one. So the remaining step is to make an app to automate this. So the end result is we'll have nearly automatic sending and nearly automatic thanking, basically robots talking to robots, while the whole experience of birthday wishes is automated away from humans.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  All of which is why I walked away from the whole charade that is Facebook. Frankly, fuck that noise. Facebook added nothing to my life. I have the same number of friends as I had when I was Facebook but now I know who they are.
- cubano 12y ago
  > We are materially richer, but what about the social connections? Well...Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn of course.
  - onion2k 12y ago
    Those are database records. Social connections are actual interactions with other people.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
campers 12y ago
The most 'jarring' part in the article was "But when the Homejoy app maid shows up at her apartment, she feels uncomfortable. The class implications of someone cleaning her toilet are jarring." Income inequality will always exist in capitalistic society and to a certain level that's ok. Whats not so cool it to feel as if they are inferior just because thats how they're making the best of their life circumstances. As one of the workers said “This is a job I need, but I actually love,” Some of them come from tougher times and appreciate the work they have. Being polite to them and treating them equally as another human goes a long way. When our cleaner is over we always have a good little chat to her. She moved from Colombia to Australia by herself, is studying English. Respect to her drive to move to a foreign country and work hard to get ahead. She wasn't born in a middle-upper class first world country like I was.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  I think it's more along the lines of Katy's own sudden perceived elevation of status is jarring to her. "The wealthy" as a group come with a lot of stereotypes, responsibilities, & judgments. Katy doesn't think of herself as wealthy, but having hired help is generally a sign of considerable wealth in the USA. So, Katy is unsettled by how her social status seems to have changed out of the blue, and how she now needs to behave. Particularly, there is a pervasive stereotype of the wealthy mistreating or dehumanizing hired help, so any suddenly-wealthy middle class person is going to be panicking, "Oh shit, how do I not become that wealthy person, I've never done this before" I don't think judgement of the worker was even on the radar.
  - campers 12y ago
    Good points, the discomfort as the article put it is a better way to describe it than inferior. Also true that not everyone feels comfortable in the elevated position of being able to afford to hire other people to do what they might consider menial tasks.
  - danans 12y ago
    There's another, perhaps US-specific dimension to the discomfort: The self-sufficiency and egalitarianism of doing one's own chores used to be a note of middle class pride, at least in the once strong middle-class industrial areas of the country. These values were further facilitated by the post-war boom in home-labor saving appliances (washing machines, etc.) Many of us who grew up in such a cultural context have a more difficult relationship with others serving us, and we don't feel it gives us an increase in status, but rather it feels almost like a moral failing. Of course, with the ever busier nature of our lives and the availability of low-wage workers, it's quite hard to stick to those morals, hence the inner conflict. People I know who grew up in US cities or other countries where a significant service-employed underclass exists don't seem to have issues with being served. From what I've seen, being able to afford service labor in those places is actually a status symbol that people strive towards.
jamesknelson 12y ago
This article made me think of the short story Manna: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm The only difference being that instead of being directed with headsets, people are now being directed with apps. I wonder how long until the world reaches chapter 3?
nether 12y ago
Wow, the meal delivery is like American dabbawala: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indian-food-delivery-service-envy-fedex-n156291 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indian-food-delive...
Afforess 12y ago
I guess call me crazy, but I really enjoy chores. They aren't always pleasent, but they are a diversion. I can listen to NPR podcasts while grocery shopping. I catch up on the "Stuff you should know" podcast while cleaning and vacuuming my apartment. And I enjoy a walk around the area in the evenings when the weather is nice out. The diversions are where I can really think. I often have too many distractions at the computer, and can't focus on the really hard problems I am working on. I've found when I am doing something menial like chores, that is when I can really think and solve hard problems, especially when I am not trying to at all. I would never outsource my chores. I just enjoy them too much.
- sharkweek 12y ago
  Agreed - but I think I know the source of my love for chores and it stems from, while I love him dearly and appreciate how he raised me, a cheap dad growing up who wouldn't be caught dead paying for someone else to do something around the house for him. I couldn't imagine paying someone money to come mow my lawn or clean my windows, etc. I do really enjoy the feeling of completing something on the to-do list as well, so that probably helps.
- euske 12y ago
  To me, what's really great is the feel of independence. When I do chores (or any work really) I'm always thinking like "Look, Ma - I can do this on my own!" even when nobody around is watching me. I guess the feeling that you can learn those small things and take care of yourself help boosting your confidence a lot. That said, I admit that there are many things I can't do - like making my own garment or my own transistors. But I'm trying to expand my abilities, and this everyday learning process helps me keep having positive attitudes towards many things (because you're often surprised by how little you knew about things that you've taken for granted!). A little side note. I work for disabled (blind) people and often I feel sorry for them not being able to do some of very simple chores without help by sighted people. Let them have a chance to enjoy their own chores. That would be a good society.
- ryanSrich 12y ago
  Yup. I don't even think of them as chores. I mean, maybe cleaning, but grocery shopping? I enjoy that shit. I'm too anal retentive to let someone else pick out my produce. Aside from that, if you're in a city why do you even need these services? Are these people so glued to their work that they can't take 30 minutes out of the day to walk to the grocery store and pick up a few items? This article was very sad to read imo.
nether 12y ago
If anyone in the Los Angeles area wants to stop being a shutin, I'm open to take people on hikes. There's everything from short nature walks with nice waterfalls, to epic mountain death marches in the area and I'd be happy to guide anyone: nodus3@gmail.com
sixQuarks 12y ago
This video called "Seamless: No Human" was made as a parody of the shut-in economy, and showed up on Reddit the other day. It's actually pretty funny, but the craziest thing is that the top comments on Reddit all said it's a service they would want to use in real-life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD13GrccRPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD13GrccRPw
graeme 12y ago
I dislike the sharing economy term. I'm an occasional Airbnb host, and frequent guest. That, to me, is sharing, or frequently is, especially if you're only renting a room. Almost all of the rest is now. "Spare capacity" economy, "arbitrage economy" or "serving economy" would be better terms.
JohnBooty 12y ago
I don't feel like ordering things online makes me a shut-in at all - just the opposite. I work a lot, and by spending less time on the drudgery of brick-and-mortar shopping, I have more time to spend on the things that matter to me. Including socializing. Yeah, maybe I leave the house less, but are those trips to the store really "quality time?" Making a run to Wal-Mart or the supermarket to buy toilet paper is time better spent than playing with my dog or reading a book? We're missing out on some potential fun times, sure. I have made friends, bumped into existing friends, and had some good conversations while shopping. But those experiences were and far between. One positive social experience out of one or two hundred trips to the stores, maybe. Retail shopping is usually freaking depressing - the employees and customers are often rude, and you're bombarded from all angles with sights and sounds designed to entice (or scare) you into buying things you don't need. No thank you. Lately my wife and I subscribed to a service that sends you 3 ready-to-prepare meals (for two or four people) per week. These aren't frozen heat-and-eat meals; they ship you fresh ingredients and easy to follow recipes. Are we shut-ins? Because cooking these meals together is generally a lot more fun (and healthier) than dining out for us.
- pokoleo 12y ago
  > service that sends you 3 ready-to-prepare meals (for two or four people) per week Which service?
  - jedmeyers 12y ago
    Blue Apron maybe?
    - JohnBooty 12y ago
      That's the one! $60/week for three meals for two. More expensive than groceries but cheaper than dining out! The meals take about 20-30 minutes to prepare and cook. It's been working for us.
      - nahname 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tomphoolery 12y ago
So for all of you people who withstand the bullshit of the bay area but stay in all the time...why are you wasting all your money living in a city and not taking advantage of being urban? You could, instead, move a bit further outside the city and live around trees, grass and the best part? There's like no people around! It's great! I mean...you don't even need to live in the bay area. You could just move to, oh I don't know, one of the other 20 massive major cities in America and live much cheaper. Is being amongst all of these startups really that important if all you're doing is going to the office and coming home? Never going out and being a part of the social scene? I just...don't understand this idea at all. Seems like a fairly illogical way to live life. FWIW this is precisely the reason why I moved away from the suburbs and live in a city. I just like living in the city more, I like walking around and having conversations with people. Not talking to my neighbors makes me afraid of what I don't know about them. Not seeing anyone or knowing anyone exists seems scary to me, and the Internet is just 70% there because the social interactions you can have on here are limited at best. Saying you have a social life because you're on the Internet is kinda like saying you're a total stud because you have a lot of phone sex. It's not really the same thing, but you might feel the same way about it.
- ryanSrich 12y ago
  > So for all of you people who withstand the bullshit of the bay area but stay in all the time...why are you wasting all your money living in a city and not taking advantage of being urban? You could, instead, move a bit further outside the city and live around trees, grass and the best part? There's like no people around! It's great! Right!? When I saw that the concierge said they have a lot of "work from homers" I was like "wait...what". Why on earth would you live in SF if you could work from anywhere?
  - robryan 12y ago
    I would imagine that a lot of them have jobs that may be from home but require frequent meetings in the area. Other than that it might be for networking, or they might have all their friends in the area.
jeffyee 12y ago
Obviously these services are useful and can save you time now, but they are, generally speaking, rather expensive. That means you end up saving less and probably will be working for more years rather than retiring early. I think it's a fallacy to think these "saved hours" translate directly into additional paid work. Most of the folks using these services are in salaried jobs, and don't benefit financially by working an extra few hours a week.
jaza 12y ago
It's an eye-opener to me, seeing the extremes at which this way of life has apparently arrived... for one group of people in one place in the whole world. Seriously, this article pretends all of humanity in 2015 lives this way. It doesn't! There are approx. 7 billion people outside the Bay Area bubble universe! (Perhaps the author, a resident of the bubble herself, has forgotten this?). Sure makes me feel old-fashioned, that I and everyone I know still make 95% of purchases offline, still buy groceries at a physical supermarket, still go to the park for a walk every day, still meet new people offline every day, still do household chores, etc. And I live in Sydney (also mentioned in the article - and incidentally, also SF's sister city), not a backward or a disconnected place either. SF, like Sydney, has good weather and a beautiful outdoors. Pity that so many SF'ers don't seem to be making the most of it.
- kilbuz 12y ago
  Many anecdotes here, and no real data. Much like all of the world does not live this way, I assure you all of SF does not live this way. As one who does "get out" from time to time, I can assure you there are a healthy number of people socializing all over the city. There are also plenty of people who make the most of the outdoors. Try visiting a well-marked trail within 20 miles of SF on a weekend. Not exactly "away from it all." Agree with you that this article picks a very narrow view and creates false dichotomies.
- abalashov 12y ago
  Yes, but we have some of these services in Atlanta, and it may portend of future things to come, at least for a certain category of well-compensated people. My general experience has been that Valley trends do get exported, if with considerable latency, to other metro areas. Uber and Lyft are big hits. GrubHub matters. A nontrivial percentage of people in my generation seem to use Instakart...
bfrog 12y ago
How sick Capitalism can be in twisting what we think we need away from what's actually good for us. The Rat Race is so very very real.
moultano 12y ago
Instacart, Handy, and DoorDash have totally changed the experience of being a new parent. Nothing makes you want to pay someone to solve your problems like not sleeping for a month.
carsongross 12y ago
A truly interesting article. Thank you, killwhitey. Wait, what?
physcab 12y ago
I think people are vastly over-estimating how much time they are saving using these "on-demand" apps. For a mom who is trying to juggle 2 children, yes, I can see this as a huge help. But for the vast majority of the target demographic (young, single-ish, urban upper middle class folks), we're not gaining hours in a day. We're experiencing instant gratification. We're stimulating the reward centers in our brain that remind us how great it is to be 2 again: press a button, get a prize. I recently started coming to the realization that the "on-demand" lifestyle is having a much more detrimental affect on my life enjoyment. When I'm consumed with messaging, pressing buttons, working, social media, filling my head with anxiety of the next thing, I am losing myself in the future. It takes an enormous amount of effort to be mindful. Cooking, engaging with others, sitting in silence and letting thoughts bubble up, and even chores. These are all little moments that keep me grounded and self-aware and I've think that has made me a better person.
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  > For a mom who is trying to juggle 2 children, yes, I can see this as a huge help. But for the vast majority of the target demographic (young, single-ish, urban upper middle class folks), we're not gaining hours in a day. Wat. The mom in this example may find apps like this more _necessary/useful_, but how does it save her more time than it saves the single person? I got back from the symphony a couple of hours ago and need to get some laundry detergent and other sundries: instead of wasting a good chunk of the part of my day that overlaps with regular hours (when concerts, restaurants, parties, parks, meetups, shows, etc are all open), I spent 4 minutes at 11 pm ordering that stuff before going to bed. Perhaps if your free time consists of sitting on your couch staring at a blank wall, then maximizing free time is not particularly useful, but for those of us who actually do things in our free time, making chores more efficient is a no-brainer. (Though in my case this particular example is a little less salient because I live within half a mile of multiple walgreens so I can usually pick sundries up on my way home. The general principle still applies).
invalidOrTaken 12y ago
From the other side: I worked for one of the on-demand valet services in SF for a few months a few months ago. Basically I loitered around on the street all day, waiting for my company-issued iPhone to send me running or biking to either pick up someone's car or return it. What was driven (ba-dum) home to me was how buildings in a city are built defensively, to keep out the riff-raff (myself being a member of such). The implications are somewhat worrying.
prawn 12y ago
I feel like this is a natural response to our lives having us interact with so many people. Some might like the atmosphere that comes from crowd experiences (sports, parades, etc) but we're generally not especially comfortable around strangers. I enjoy interacting with family, friends and colleagues, but less so random people passing on the street. We evolved in groups in which you might recognise or know detail about everyone around you. People often talk about tribes or townships of 150 people. We're shutting in not from everyone, but from those outside that circle of 150 people. I think our future virtual lives (building on current social networks) will allow us to very carefully manage our interactions with others. We will be somewhat insulated from the masses whether they are abroad or down the street.
igonvalue 12y ago
In a sufficiently frictionless economy, people will hire each other to do the things they'd rather not do themselves. This is generally acknowledged as a net positive for society[0], and surely the author doesn't manufacture her own electronics, build her own house, or grow her own food. What's so extraordinary about delivery services? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
anupshinde 12y ago
I started working from home as an employee and then moved out of the job to be an independent consultant working from home. I enjoyed the freedom, there was so much I could do apart from work after saving on daily travel and lesser restriction on time. Slowly, it turned the other way round - I got shut-in. Started from not having to go to local store daily - because it was a waste of time. I could not relate to a calendar-day. Sometimes I would start my work at 6pm in evening and sometimes at 3am in the morning. I tried to discipline myself, but it did not work out for valid reasons. And I started introverting due to lack of social contacts. Health wasn't an issue - because home gyms were good enough and I think those kept me off any depression. The shut-in introduces pretty bad habits. The "freedom" was out, I was working most of the time - it almost felt like a self-imposed prison in the name of discipline and saving time. Sometimes I have wondered if my life was any better than placing my brain in a box bionically connected to a computer. Now, I make it a habit to go out once every day or couple of days, same time for 45 mins-1 hour a bit after the busy day starts for most. It is a HUGE waste of time but it acts as a tether for my work day, makes me feel grateful for what I have and surprisingly, results in better productivity.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Oh god this is so familiar. Work from home, too, pays the bills just fine but I've lost any semblance of schedule. Barely need to go out anymore, just for groceries but my gf who goes out daily and loves to cook likes to do this part, only occasionally do I run to the store to get some things for her. So I barely get out. Been meaning to go out on a daily basis but I think I have DSPD [0] and so I tend to wake up late, sleep really late (or early in the morning). It's terrible really, I feel like a bum or a teenage kid sleeping like this but it's like I'm programmed to act like a 3 year old in the morning, the self-discipline required to get out is insane while I've generally always had a bit of a spartan lifestyle haha. It boggles my mind how hard it is for me to get up. And I absolutely can't sleep at night consistently. Even if I wake up at 8AM, work out heavy for 2 hours, spend a day draining my brain concentrating for hours, meet people for hours and go around town doing groceries and am physically tired, I can't sleep. And then at 4-5AM it hits me like a train. Sometimes I'll power through, not sleeping because I know if I sleep at 4, I'll wake up at 12. So instead I'll try not to sleep and power through until the evening, and then yes I can finally sleep at night that day. But then that next day I generally still wake up at 12. Even if I ease into it and change my sleeping schedule by 1 hour every two days, at some point it gets reset. Anyway the point of all this is that I tend to wake up shortly after noon and I just don't want to go out for an hour at that point, all I want to do is get some work done before I need to clean up, help prepare dinner, spend time with my gf etc. After sleeping in so late, the last thing I want to do is spend the first hour walking around outside. So I postpone going outside to the evening and I never really do, especially if it's dark and cold like now. In that way it's exactly like you said, a self-imposed prison in the name of work and saving time. And then a little later it's 12PM and I've still got hours ahead of me, but there's no way I'm going outside at 3AM. (I used to as a teenager, but now as an adult I'd just feel like a freak and my gf would get super worried and want to have 'a talk' if I started doing that haha. Also I'd be bored out of my mind if it's dark and deserted. Also, no Vitamin D at night!) Writing all of this down is confronting haha, looks like my life is a mess. Still trying to find some balance to all of this. I've been meaning to just get a regular job again, but I'm genuinely afraid I couldn't do the 9-5 schedule, as I basically went straight into freelance work out of college and both college and freelance work allowed weird schedules. The hope is that the pressure to conform to this model for fear of getting fired etc forces me to keep to the schedule. Would love any more ideas or experiences if you want to share :) 0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
BadassFractal 12y ago
Any Alfred users in SF yet? Thoughts? Seems interesting.
rdlecler1 12y ago
Most of these benefits are being subsidized by VC money (and pension fund LPs). The only reason I enjoyed my $2.25 LyftLine rides last month was because Lyft was burning through their VC money trying to build enough supply/demand to get better scale. Thank you California Teachers Pension Fund! Even with 20-30% markups these companies will not make money without big assumptions about moving down the cost curve. When the VC party end for these companies, it will end for us too, and then we'll have to go to the store to buy our own damn gluten free kale! Until then ladies and gentlemen, we live like aristocrats!
roghummal 12y ago
You'd think that ordering from one service ("WindowRun") around the same times, the same days, would deliver a familiar face now and then. Nah. People are abundant, flexible, and most of all disposable.
raverbashing 12y ago
Yes, I'm afraid the world is going on a direction where there will be two kinds of people: those serving coffee at Starbucks and those going there to order coffee and work off their laptops. (Or maybe it's even worse and they'll stay at home and order their cups online) It's a dystopian analogy, but one that's sounding more real every day.
normloman 12y ago
"Mallon is a 26-year-old in New York City who works as a branding sales consultant to tech companies, regularly working from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. " What? Who the hell thinks this is healthy? This person is literally filling all their waking life with work. Even if you love the shit out of your job, you're neglecting your mental and physical health by working that long. (And in all likelihood, she doesn't love the shit out her job. You'll be pressed to find just one person on Earth who'd be happy spending every hour of their day "branding". And I'm a marketing manager!) And it's not like this person doesn't have other options. She makes enough money to live in a fancy San Francisco apartment and hire on-demand services to do everything. So she's making bank. But all that money's just going to keep up an expensive lifestyle that she doesn't even have time to enjoy. I just hope she's got a plan. Maybe save as much as possible and retire early. Otherwise, what is she doing with her life?
- unimportant 12y ago
  Welcome to NY, where everybody outside of Brooklyn is a high achiever who thinks it's necessary to fill his life with as much work as possible, as otherwise someone else might get his job / he might miss out on a promotion.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
serve_yay 12y ago
I prefer to just not be so busy. Busyness is not a virtue. But then, I guess with that attitude I'll be working for Alfred one day.
natmaster 12y ago
But then when the 'servants' are replaced by robots people will complain that 'jobs' are lost.
jokoon 12y ago
Urbanization, clerk type jobs and the information age discourage us to have human contact. But it's expected since in apartment buildings you tend to be overwhelmed with the amount of people who are around you: you wish you could talk and meet with some of them, but it will never happen, because urbanism tend to de-socialize people: apartments are build like prison cells. Other services like uber, couchsurfing, airbnb, meetup, want to do the opposite.
halov 12y ago
From my perspective, it's generally the working culture (long working hours) of the country/city/communities that make people "shut-in" - not the fact they order online. What choice you have if you work from 8 am to 9 pm? I assume delivery guys would be "shut-in" as well if their job obligations wouldn't take them outdoors.
jhoechtl 12y ago
“NEVER LEAVE HOME AGAIN.” http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
zby 12y ago
It was not in that article - but I wander how do the guys using it feel about the security implications of it.
Tsugumo 12y ago
VR headsets will exacerbate the issue, and make it more popular in media.
oceanfinance 12y ago
LOAN OFFER Do you need an urgent loan? Apply Now and get your cash urgently by replying with your request! Do You Need Any Kind of Loan? Apply Now. * Arrangements to Borrow Your Required Loan Amount * Choose between 1 to 20 years to repay. * Choose between monthly and annual repayment plan .. * Flexible loan terms and conditions. All these plans and more,contact us now. Email: oceanfinance2014@gmail.com Regards Management
lucio 12y ago
Please, please stop the freaking vacuum cleaner... why, god, why?
oceanfinance 12y ago
LOAN OFFER Do you need an urgent loan? Apply Now and get your cash urgently by replying with your request! Do You Need Any Kind of Loan? Apply Now. * Arrangements to Borrow Your Required Loan Amount * Choose between 1 to 20 years to repay. * Choose between monthly and annual repayment plan .. * Flexible loan terms and conditions. All these plans and more,contact us now. Email: oceanfinance2014@gmail.com Regards Management
Lancey 12y ago
Having worked as a delivery guy, I always find it weird that everyone points to this "shut-in economy" as representing some sort of classism. You can do deliveries for Amazon or drive for Uber while also utilizing these services yourself. It'd depend a lot on tips (techies don't tip well so this might be a problem in San Francisco), but it's not like you're stuck on one side of the fence here.
lucio 12y ago
The point of view of the author is left-depressive. Maybe that's the reason why the comments get into depression issues Having an easy job-opportunity as a delivery-person, or Uber-driver or freelance-(anything) is a good thing, not a bad thing. If you enjoy doing shopping maybe is a good thing that you can make shopping for others as a living. Who is a happier? The person cleaning the apartment while you're working or you? If you're getting home at 1am, stressed, unhappy, already thinking of tomorrow's work, and he/she is getting home to share a nice family dinner... Who is happier?
unimportant 12y ago
I'm living in a developing country and I'm glad online grocery delivery exists. The nearest supermarket is 30min walk away, taking a cab would cost money and time too (I don't have a car) and the nearer wet market (about 15min walk away) is just a huge mess with everybody looking unhappy, prices needing haggling and quality being much lower. My quality of living has gone up a lot since then and I'm saving a lot of time as well.
jmzbond 12y ago
I agree with many of the points in this article, though I think it's interesting that this strikes a chord. Because this is just a more micro version of the macro-economic chase for comparative advantage and efficiency, where we outsource production to developing countries, whether it be clothing or call centers, or whatever. Same end goal right? Cheaper than doing it yourself, implying that you free up your own resources to do... well more [service oriented/ white collar] work. I guess the one thing about the shut-in economy is that if we can think about these social issues, then there's hope we can also think about slave labor, or child labor, etc. when they are employed by major businesses (the original "apps") we buy from all the time.
seeingfurther 12y ago
We are becoming a society of eloi and morlocks
KathrynShantz1 12y ago
What happens when shut-ins have families - and consequently don't know other parents or kids? Things start to go downhill from a life experience perspective.
- eddy_chan 12y ago
  I actually think a lot less people would be shut-ins if they had kids. All those 'menial chores' are actually become interesting because you're 'not just doing the grocery shopping anymore'. You're taking you kids shopping so they can explore the supermarket with them. They'll ask questions about what you buy and why you buy it. Of course they'll nag you to buy something for them as well. Kids will nag you to go out to the park, to the museum or whatever other local attraction there is and along the way you'll get social interaction which helps balance things out.

447 points by killwhitey 12y ago

Van Ekert’s answer: “It’s more to dedicate more time to working.” With the arrival of every functionary serving as a reminder of what could happen if you slow down your pace on the treadmill. This article makes me glad I don't live in SF any more.

copsarebastards 12y ago
There's an episode of the show Black Mirror that makes this very very obvious.
- unfunco 12y ago
  For those wondering, I think the episode that copsarebastards is referring to is called 15 Million Merits.

niels_olson 12y ago

The Albert service seems ripe for abuse. People unknown entering your home? At least a full time maid is a traceable person... Seems like the opportunities for an airbnb-style break-in are rampant.

etjossem 12y ago
As I understand it, these are actual employees of Alfred. No different from any other person you let into your home to do work.

beachstartup 12y ago

> “We’re trying to remove the taboo and the guilt that you should have to do it,” says Alfred’s CEO every time i use one of these services i feel a bit guilty. twofold; guilty that i have someone literally serving me, and that i'm too lazy to do it myself. i still use them occasionally though. laundry every 2 weeks because i don't have in-unit, and occasional food delivery when i'm feeling especially lazy - i try to just call local restaurants directly though. i also stopped using homejoy because quite frankly it felt too weird to have someone cleaning my tiny place for me. > When signing up, customers can choose the option of not seeing their Alfred haha. wow. i guess that's one way of dealing with it.

bbcbasic 12y ago
I do too, although there is no reason to really. You outsource when you pay for anything - from tax to broccoli! The only way to escape is to learn how to go money-free and feral!
- saiya-jin 12y ago
  there is a nice, wide middle path you know. outsourcing something I cannot do properly/safely/takes me a lot of time and I don't want to go through learning curve - that's OK. outsourcing something that i can do in couple of (tens of) minutes - that's being lazy. no way around it.
  - bbcbasic 12y ago
    Lazy is not a bad thing. Sloth is not a sin. If someone works 40 hours a week I think it is fair dinkum.
Turing_Machine 12y ago
This isn't criticism, just curiosity: do you feel guilty when you pay someone to cut your hair or dispose of your garbage (assuming the latter service isn't included in your housing... that varies, of course). Those are both things that would have been done by servants in the past, but that most people still have done today rather than doing themselves. One advantage of having a buzz cut is that it's easy to cut my own hair, but when I had another hair style I didn't feel guilty about getting it cut. I hated that it consumed my time, but that's another thing.
- nness 12y ago
  Getting a haircut, or getting disposalists to handle rubbish, are both professions which require a degree of training and experience. I'm paying for a service I could not do myself. I feel like having a person deliver food or do my laundry is at the other side of the spectrum. I can do both things, and its obvious that those who are working in those jobs roles are not in the economic bracket to afford it themselves.

lnlyplnt 12y ago

As a Current Alfred customer in NYC I can say that the service has been a huge help, and not in the "shut in" way suggested by this article. Having my laundry, groceries and packages taken care of for me allows me to maximize my weekends. I think one of the other reasons Alfred is so useful is that it removes 100% of the cognitive load of chores. Services like flycleaners and instacart are actually only marginally helpful since the user still needs to think about laundry and groceries.

blackguardx 12y ago
This is such a glowing review that it almost seems like an advertisement. If/when I get customers, I hope they are this positive about my business.
- lnlyplnt 12y ago
  I can assure you that I am no shill. One thing I will say is that it took a few weeks to get everything "in the flow" (socks go in this drawer, wash this but not that etc) , but once they know your routine it's quite incredible to watch everything happen on autopilot.

sowhatquestion 12y ago

I don't have the historical knowledge to do it myself, but it would be fascinating to read an in-depth comparison between these services and the economy of servants in the 19th or early-20th century. The image in my head (from movies and books and reading [about] Piketty) is that the wealthy in earlier eras were more idle, living off rents rather than incomes. I imagine servants would have been more of a status symbol for them, whereas today's upper-middle-class strivers see them as more of a necessity "to dedicate more time to working." I wonder, is that as close as we get to progress, under capitalism? I.e., if we're going to have servants, the people employing them today have a somewhat less dubious reason for doing so than their ancestors?

ninguem2 12y ago
I don't think servants were just status symbols. Cooking, cleaning and laundry without appliances was a very time consuming job which probably occupied the days of the wife and daughters of a family with no servants. Add to that inconvenient shopping, clothes mending, child care.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Yep, your comment reminds me of the $3500 shirt: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-lesson-in.html http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-l...
- sowhatquestion 12y ago
  You're absolutely right. I'm not sure why this didn't come to mind immediately. I guess I was just trying to get at the distinction between people employing servants in order to enjoy more leisure vs. employing them in order to have more time to work.
brc 12y ago
Why do you think serving is an undeserving job? Each person being paid to do some type of task has a job. That is better than being unemployed. It's wrong to make value judgements on the way people make money in an honest job. A person in the 19th century who had a job as a servant at least had a job, and what was considered respectable as well. The alternatives were far, far worse, like getting caught for petty theft and shipped to a colony.

irascible 12y ago

I was a shut in before it was cool...

saiya-jin 12y ago
it's not cool...

joezydeco 12y ago

I'm curious as to what's going to happen when this group starts having babies. Time to write a business plan I guess.

Turing_Machine 12y ago
Hmm... it seems to me that childcare is another of the "formerly done by servants" things that people have never stopped outsourcing to others. That's not saying there's not an opportunity there. Daycare operations still seem to be mostly "artisanal", or at least operating on a fairly small scale. The big problem you're going to face is that people are incredibly protective of their children (and rightly so... those who aren't haven't left their genes behind :-)). Food is pretty personal, but most people will think nothing of stopping into a strange restaurant and eating the food, but they would never drop off their kids at a random storefront.
- saiya-jin 12y ago
  seeing its parents so rarely, they wouldn't be exactly a role model parents for their kids. could be much worse, or course, but having kids is arguably the most important thing in lives of many people, so if doing it, let's do it properly and raise (at least try hard, i mean HARD) a confident, balanced issue-free happy people. i've got the feeling this planet & mankind needs more of those compared to uber-competitive self-centered workoholics.

prostoalex 12y ago

> They released a study monitoring the social behavior of 169 people making their first forays online. The web-surfers started talking less with family and friends ... Does that factor in the amount of communication happening online via messengers, chats or just Facebook comments on someone's live events? It seems that at least portion of this communication has shifted online, not got supplanted by online.

nazgulnarsil 12y ago

Shaming introverts. Nothing like hitting someone who can't fight back.

saiya-jin 12y ago
I am an itnrovert, but believe me, what this article describes (albeit maybe a bit overblown) is a sad story even from my perspective. Introvert != being inside surrounded by 4 walls. In fact, for people like me, being in nature & mountains, alone or with friends, has amazing mental soothing effects

Procrastes 12y ago

It seems the obvious unserved need here is a way to outsource the actual work. Maybe I can create a business model around sending someone to your job to act as your proxy. InstaLackey.com and ImposterPool.com are both available... * I have to admit that I just spent five minutes struggling with the urge to build a MVP instead of hitting "Add Comment."

redwood 12y ago

Anyone else having trouble with Medium articles this week --- menu items transparently displaying over the article? (Android/"internet" app)

cafebeen 12y ago

An interesting article, but I wonder about the parts about social class. They argue that "social class can be defined by the chores you don’t do" and that "luxuries usually afforded to one-percenters now stretch to the urban upper-middle class". Presumably these people are still working jobs to pay for their lifestyle (perhaps spending their freed up time working), and one person's job is another person's chore. Is the difference is that tech workers tend to enjoy their jobs?

tsotha 12y ago

>So here’s the big question. What does she, or you, or any of us do with all this time we’re buying? Binge on Netflix shows? Go for a run? Van Ekert’s answer: “It’s more to dedicate more time to working.” Meh. It's specialization. It's been happening since everyone figured out Og makes better clubs than everyone else and he'll make you one if you give him food. Most of the people reading this site have a skill that brings in $50+ per hour. Why not pay someone to clean your bathroom and use that time for working?

timepiece 12y ago
Now you make $50/hour, wait till commoditization hit your profession and see your wage dwindle before your own eyes.
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  Presumably the people delivering groceries or doing someone elses laundry weren't making $50/hour in the same profession at some earlier point in their career.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    but at least they had a tad more job security and weren't being misclassified as contractors (so had less tax burden)
    - oh_sigh 12y ago
      But these jobs just didn't exist(unless you count full time maids for example), so it doesn't make sense to talk about job security or whether they were contractors or not.
      - danans 12y ago
        I'm not sure we have enough data yet to say whether the people doing these jobs previously did or didn't have better paying or more secure jobs. Anecdotally, there are many people whose income and job security have severely declined, and who been relegated to low payed variable-workforce service jobs. I don't know to what extent people like that are represented among the taskrabbit-type service workers.

mooreds 12y ago

How is this different than me hiring a handyman to put up the shelves bought 2 months ago that I never found the time to put up? Is it different in scale or in kind?

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
In kind... probably not. Perhaps if you'd have said 'fix some electric work that I couldn't do', in that case it'd be different as this article describes work that anyone could do. e.g. they'll talk about expensive $5.000 a month apartments having awesome functional kitchens installed, yet everyone orders food. In scale... well the handyman is a one time thing. But it seems a lot of new tech workers making $100k a year are fine spending $5k on ordering dinner 5 days a week for $20. That's kind of weird compared to all the centuries before. But at some point it might become more like the drycleaner: a service outside your home that's more expensive, but more convenient and not necessarily much fun. Perhaps cooking will become a once a week hobby type of thing, with everyday food not becoming a case of preparing lunch or dinner, but rather a case of choosing fashionable and exotic lunch or dinner, much like shopping for clothing. Who knows.
- krschultz 12y ago
  Plenty of non tech workers order food every night for dinner. Plenty of non tech workers have cleaning services. That has existed for 40+ years. Changing it from phone ordering to online ordering doesn't change it that much. Grocery delivery and some of the other things are a bit newer, but they are also more niche. What has changed is the employment relationship between the people doing the work and the companies. You used to hire a cleaning company and they had employees that came out, now you hire an independent contractor via Handy. To me it seems all supply side and not really demand side. This article is all about the demand side.

hoboon 12y ago

This is how I feel. I don't watch TV for hours like I did as a child. What I do now is worse; stay in doors programming, browsing the web aimlessly, or staring at the ceiling. I don't blame my internet lifestyle for this really, but I literally don't know what else to do and the internet is so accommodating to me being a shut-in. I know I'm wasting my life but I don't know how to stop. San Francisco is a beautiful city but it is wasted on me and I feel like I should feel guilty for that. I don't deserve this nice city; it belongs to creative people. Trying to leave the house to do anything interesting takes herculean efforts. I can't find joy or interest in anything beyond an intellectual level. Everyday sometimes feels like it's worse than the last. I'm trapped in an un-ending present where I grow older but never grow as a person. ps - anything you have to suggest is something i've heard already x10 and have or currently trying, such as therapy.

initself 12y ago
Perhaps meditation is what you need, so you can enjoy the un-ending present AND grow as a person! http://dhamma.org http://dhamma.org
moultano 12y ago
PS aside, you might find that walking aimlessly satisfies the same itch as browsing aimlessly, but you feel better at the end of it.
- GuiA 12y ago
  Yes. Cannot overstate how important that is. I've started taking random 10-15 minute walks throughout the day at work (leaving my phone on my desk), and it's a great way to clear your mind and relax a bit.
- jchrisa 12y ago
  +1 walking http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Détournement http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Détournement [edit] Meant this link http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm
yequalsx 12y ago

timepiece 12y ago

Good job Lauren ... I really enjoyed reading the article ... NYT caliber indeed but I wish that you could give more space to workers so they could express their points of view regarding the whole situation.

pauldbau 12y ago
Seconded - there are some interesting/challenging social dilemmas ahead for the 1st world in particular.

femto 12y ago

> Many services promote themselves as life-expanding — there > to free up your time so you can spend it connecting with > the people you care about, not standing at the post > office with strangers. Rinse’s ad shows a couple chilling > at a park, their laundry being washed by someone, > somewhere beyond the picture’s frame. A case of letting the destination (free time for socialising) overrule the journey (social interaction in your everyday life)? For example, if you go to a laundromat regularly or catch a bus regularly, you eventually end up seeing the same people and might even end up making friends with them. Maybe even good enough friends that you coordinate your journeys/tasks in order to catch up? Getting philosophical, an awful lot of things, including life, can be viewed in terms of "nodes and edges". In the case of life, why put so much emphasis on the nodes (the goal) whilst most of your time is spent on the edges (the journeys)?

JohnBooty 12y ago
> For example, if you go to a laundromat regularly or > catch a bus regularly, you eventually end up seeing the > same people and might even end up making friends with > them. Maybe even good enough friends that you coordinate > your journeys/tasks in order to catch up? You can make friends anywhere. Even in stores! My mother met one of her best friends when she was a customer at the supermarket where her friend worked. And that's cool when it happens, but come on. It's pretty rare. Even in a small town, everybody-knows-each-other kind of place. Stuff like that has got to be one of the worst ways to make friends ever. Compare that with the amount of friends one makes by doing volunteer work, joining a book club, going to local meetups, going to a dog park, etc. You want to make friends, do volunteer work. The sort of people who do volunteer work are (duh) generally great people. The worst thing that can happen is that you don't make any friends but you still do some good stuff for the world.
- yojo 12y ago
  I think it's not just friendship, it's a feeling of connectedness and community that comes from knowing people in your neighborhood and being known. For five years I lived in a rundown SF unit with no laundry on site. Every week my wife and I would drop our clothes at a nearby family run wash and fold. Over years of little interactions we started to develop a semblance of friendship and real fondness for the owner. Twice a week I got a nice pleasant/personal experience, and that was from outsourcing a single chore. I also use services like Sprig/Google Shopping Express/Amazon Prime, because they are awesome, convenient, and cheap. But as a result I rarely buy from the nearby corner store, and have not developed personal connections from any of these transactions. I have saved money and time, but it has cost me in social satisfaction. I'm not sure how I feel about that. As you point out, there might be active interventions to try and replace this connection (e.g. volunteering), but the default has shifted from "get to know the people around you through transactions" to "receive goods and services anonymously."

timepiece 12y ago

The lingering question for me now seems to be if these people can afford purchasing the services of Alfred & Co, why didn't they pick or hire a maid to do all the domestic chores & errands for them???

postmeta 12y ago

I think the intelligentsia do better when they have some manual labor in their lives too. I posit that the gig economy is just a modern take on classism and indentured servitude. We would be better served to improve robotics, automation and efficiency rather than grow a servant class (again).

ForHackernews 12y ago
Amen. America would be a better country if even richies had to scrub a toilet now and then (or alternatively, if robots also scrubbed poor peoples' toilets for them). We could use a good dose of humility.
zem 12y ago
whenever i read articles like this, i can't help but think how much beneficial pressure a basic income would exert on a system like this. when no one has to do your unpleasant/tedious tasks because it's that or starve, there's suddenly an incentive for those jobs to pay much more, or be automated as efficiently as possible. i can see a post-basic-income equivalent of instacart, for example, being the one person who goes out and does grocery shopping for an entire building, but gets a lot of their other chores done for them as a quid pro quo.
Dirlewanger 12y ago
The parallels between the gig economy and the increasing specialization in the First Industrial Revolution are sickening, and it's only going to get worse.

marcosdumay 12y ago

As a Brazilian I can say: welcome to an unequal society, US. Yes, that's one of the symptoms, and if you look at the lives of those people serving, it's hearth-breaking.

zkhalique 12y ago

Think about all this specialization. This is what a "good economy" looks like. Parents who work long hours so they can afford to rent some great apartment and buy stuff for their family. They outsource a lot of the childcare to professional nannies or whoever. They outsource a lot of the elder care to nursing homes etc. People are getting married later in life so they can focus on their career. Individualism, kids moving out early, trying to impress each other with great apartments etc. We are materially richer, but what about the social connections? Similarly with technology. Take birthdays, for example. On their birthday people used to get personal phone calls, possibly emails. Then facebook made it easy to just write "happy birthday" on someone's wall, and see who else wrote it. Then, to increase "engagement" (or the appearance thereof), they let you write a quick note right where the birthday reminder appeared, on the right-hand pane. Now you couldn't even see what others wrote, and sometimes would breeze through, personalizing the greetings slightly "Happy birthday girl! Older and sexier they say." Now, people are complaining that they have to get through so many birthday wishes on their wall and write a semi-personalized "thanks" response to each one. So the remaining step is to make an app to automate this. So the end result is we'll have nearly automatic sending and nearly automatic thanking, basically robots talking to robots, while the whole experience of birthday wishes is automated away from humans.

copsarebastards 12y ago
All of which is why I walked away from the whole charade that is Facebook. Frankly, fuck that noise. Facebook added nothing to my life. I have the same number of friends as I had when I was Facebook but now I know who they are.
cubano 12y ago
> We are materially richer, but what about the social connections? Well...Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn of course.
- onion2k 12y ago
  Those are database records. Social connections are actual interactions with other people.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

campers 12y ago

The most 'jarring' part in the article was "But when the Homejoy app maid shows up at her apartment, she feels uncomfortable. The class implications of someone cleaning her toilet are jarring." Income inequality will always exist in capitalistic society and to a certain level that's ok. Whats not so cool it to feel as if they are inferior just because thats how they're making the best of their life circumstances. As one of the workers said “This is a job I need, but I actually love,” Some of them come from tougher times and appreciate the work they have. Being polite to them and treating them equally as another human goes a long way. When our cleaner is over we always have a good little chat to her. She moved from Colombia to Australia by herself, is studying English. Respect to her drive to move to a foreign country and work hard to get ahead. She wasn't born in a middle-upper class first world country like I was.

sliverstorm 12y ago
I think it's more along the lines of Katy's own sudden perceived elevation of status is jarring to her. "The wealthy" as a group come with a lot of stereotypes, responsibilities, & judgments. Katy doesn't think of herself as wealthy, but having hired help is generally a sign of considerable wealth in the USA. So, Katy is unsettled by how her social status seems to have changed out of the blue, and how she now needs to behave. Particularly, there is a pervasive stereotype of the wealthy mistreating or dehumanizing hired help, so any suddenly-wealthy middle class person is going to be panicking, "Oh shit, how do I not become that wealthy person, I've never done this before" I don't think judgement of the worker was even on the radar.
- campers 12y ago
  Good points, the discomfort as the article put it is a better way to describe it than inferior. Also true that not everyone feels comfortable in the elevated position of being able to afford to hire other people to do what they might consider menial tasks.
- danans 12y ago
  There's another, perhaps US-specific dimension to the discomfort: The self-sufficiency and egalitarianism of doing one's own chores used to be a note of middle class pride, at least in the once strong middle-class industrial areas of the country. These values were further facilitated by the post-war boom in home-labor saving appliances (washing machines, etc.) Many of us who grew up in such a cultural context have a more difficult relationship with others serving us, and we don't feel it gives us an increase in status, but rather it feels almost like a moral failing. Of course, with the ever busier nature of our lives and the availability of low-wage workers, it's quite hard to stick to those morals, hence the inner conflict. People I know who grew up in US cities or other countries where a significant service-employed underclass exists don't seem to have issues with being served. From what I've seen, being able to afford service labor in those places is actually a status symbol that people strive towards.

jamesknelson 12y ago

This article made me think of the short story Manna: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm The only difference being that instead of being directed with headsets, people are now being directed with apps. I wonder how long until the world reaches chapter 3?

nether 12y ago

Wow, the meal delivery is like American dabbawala: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indian-food-delivery-service-envy-fedex-n156291 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indian-food-delive...

Afforess 12y ago

I guess call me crazy, but I really enjoy chores. They aren't always pleasent, but they are a diversion. I can listen to NPR podcasts while grocery shopping. I catch up on the "Stuff you should know" podcast while cleaning and vacuuming my apartment. And I enjoy a walk around the area in the evenings when the weather is nice out. The diversions are where I can really think. I often have too many distractions at the computer, and can't focus on the really hard problems I am working on. I've found when I am doing something menial like chores, that is when I can really think and solve hard problems, especially when I am not trying to at all. I would never outsource my chores. I just enjoy them too much.

sharkweek 12y ago
Agreed - but I think I know the source of my love for chores and it stems from, while I love him dearly and appreciate how he raised me, a cheap dad growing up who wouldn't be caught dead paying for someone else to do something around the house for him. I couldn't imagine paying someone money to come mow my lawn or clean my windows, etc. I do really enjoy the feeling of completing something on the to-do list as well, so that probably helps.
euske 12y ago
To me, what's really great is the feel of independence. When I do chores (or any work really) I'm always thinking like "Look, Ma - I can do this on my own!" even when nobody around is watching me. I guess the feeling that you can learn those small things and take care of yourself help boosting your confidence a lot. That said, I admit that there are many things I can't do - like making my own garment or my own transistors. But I'm trying to expand my abilities, and this everyday learning process helps me keep having positive attitudes towards many things (because you're often surprised by how little you knew about things that you've taken for granted!). A little side note. I work for disabled (blind) people and often I feel sorry for them not being able to do some of very simple chores without help by sighted people. Let them have a chance to enjoy their own chores. That would be a good society.
ryanSrich 12y ago
Yup. I don't even think of them as chores. I mean, maybe cleaning, but grocery shopping? I enjoy that shit. I'm too anal retentive to let someone else pick out my produce. Aside from that, if you're in a city why do you even need these services? Are these people so glued to their work that they can't take 30 minutes out of the day to walk to the grocery store and pick up a few items? This article was very sad to read imo.

nether 12y ago

If anyone in the Los Angeles area wants to stop being a shutin, I'm open to take people on hikes. There's everything from short nature walks with nice waterfalls, to epic mountain death marches in the area and I'd be happy to guide anyone: nodus3@gmail.com

sixQuarks 12y ago

This video called "Seamless: No Human" was made as a parody of the shut-in economy, and showed up on Reddit the other day. It's actually pretty funny, but the craziest thing is that the top comments on Reddit all said it's a service they would want to use in real-life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD13GrccRPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD13GrccRPw

graeme 12y ago

I dislike the sharing economy term. I'm an occasional Airbnb host, and frequent guest. That, to me, is sharing, or frequently is, especially if you're only renting a room. Almost all of the rest is now. "Spare capacity" economy, "arbitrage economy" or "serving economy" would be better terms.

JohnBooty 12y ago

I don't feel like ordering things online makes me a shut-in at all - just the opposite. I work a lot, and by spending less time on the drudgery of brick-and-mortar shopping, I have more time to spend on the things that matter to me. Including socializing. Yeah, maybe I leave the house less, but are those trips to the store really "quality time?" Making a run to Wal-Mart or the supermarket to buy toilet paper is time better spent than playing with my dog or reading a book? We're missing out on some potential fun times, sure. I have made friends, bumped into existing friends, and had some good conversations while shopping. But those experiences were and far between. One positive social experience out of one or two hundred trips to the stores, maybe. Retail shopping is usually freaking depressing - the employees and customers are often rude, and you're bombarded from all angles with sights and sounds designed to entice (or scare) you into buying things you don't need. No thank you. Lately my wife and I subscribed to a service that sends you 3 ready-to-prepare meals (for two or four people) per week. These aren't frozen heat-and-eat meals; they ship you fresh ingredients and easy to follow recipes. Are we shut-ins? Because cooking these meals together is generally a lot more fun (and healthier) than dining out for us.

pokoleo 12y ago
> service that sends you 3 ready-to-prepare meals (for two or four people) per week Which service?
- jedmeyers 12y ago
  Blue Apron maybe?
  - JohnBooty 12y ago
    That's the one! $60/week for three meals for two. More expensive than groceries but cheaper than dining out! The meals take about 20-30 minutes to prepare and cook. It's been working for us.
    - nahname 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tomphoolery 12y ago

So for all of you people who withstand the bullshit of the bay area but stay in all the time...why are you wasting all your money living in a city and not taking advantage of being urban? You could, instead, move a bit further outside the city and live around trees, grass and the best part? There's like no people around! It's great! I mean...you don't even need to live in the bay area. You could just move to, oh I don't know, one of the other 20 massive major cities in America and live much cheaper. Is being amongst all of these startups really that important if all you're doing is going to the office and coming home? Never going out and being a part of the social scene? I just...don't understand this idea at all. Seems like a fairly illogical way to live life. FWIW this is precisely the reason why I moved away from the suburbs and live in a city. I just like living in the city more, I like walking around and having conversations with people. Not talking to my neighbors makes me afraid of what I don't know about them. Not seeing anyone or knowing anyone exists seems scary to me, and the Internet is just 70% there because the social interactions you can have on here are limited at best. Saying you have a social life because you're on the Internet is kinda like saying you're a total stud because you have a lot of phone sex. It's not really the same thing, but you might feel the same way about it.

ryanSrich 12y ago
> So for all of you people who withstand the bullshit of the bay area but stay in all the time...why are you wasting all your money living in a city and not taking advantage of being urban? You could, instead, move a bit further outside the city and live around trees, grass and the best part? There's like no people around! It's great! Right!? When I saw that the concierge said they have a lot of "work from homers" I was like "wait...what". Why on earth would you live in SF if you could work from anywhere?
- robryan 12y ago
  I would imagine that a lot of them have jobs that may be from home but require frequent meetings in the area. Other than that it might be for networking, or they might have all their friends in the area.

jeffyee 12y ago

Obviously these services are useful and can save you time now, but they are, generally speaking, rather expensive. That means you end up saving less and probably will be working for more years rather than retiring early. I think it's a fallacy to think these "saved hours" translate directly into additional paid work. Most of the folks using these services are in salaried jobs, and don't benefit financially by working an extra few hours a week.

jaza 12y ago

It's an eye-opener to me, seeing the extremes at which this way of life has apparently arrived... for one group of people in one place in the whole world. Seriously, this article pretends all of humanity in 2015 lives this way. It doesn't! There are approx. 7 billion people outside the Bay Area bubble universe! (Perhaps the author, a resident of the bubble herself, has forgotten this?). Sure makes me feel old-fashioned, that I and everyone I know still make 95% of purchases offline, still buy groceries at a physical supermarket, still go to the park for a walk every day, still meet new people offline every day, still do household chores, etc. And I live in Sydney (also mentioned in the article - and incidentally, also SF's sister city), not a backward or a disconnected place either. SF, like Sydney, has good weather and a beautiful outdoors. Pity that so many SF'ers don't seem to be making the most of it.

kilbuz 12y ago
Many anecdotes here, and no real data. Much like all of the world does not live this way, I assure you all of SF does not live this way. As one who does "get out" from time to time, I can assure you there are a healthy number of people socializing all over the city. There are also plenty of people who make the most of the outdoors. Try visiting a well-marked trail within 20 miles of SF on a weekend. Not exactly "away from it all." Agree with you that this article picks a very narrow view and creates false dichotomies.
abalashov 12y ago
Yes, but we have some of these services in Atlanta, and it may portend of future things to come, at least for a certain category of well-compensated people. My general experience has been that Valley trends do get exported, if with considerable latency, to other metro areas. Uber and Lyft are big hits. GrubHub matters. A nontrivial percentage of people in my generation seem to use Instakart...

bfrog 12y ago

How sick Capitalism can be in twisting what we think we need away from what's actually good for us. The Rat Race is so very very real.

moultano 12y ago

Instacart, Handy, and DoorDash have totally changed the experience of being a new parent. Nothing makes you want to pay someone to solve your problems like not sleeping for a month.

carsongross 12y ago

A truly interesting article. Thank you, killwhitey. Wait, what?

physcab 12y ago

I think people are vastly over-estimating how much time they are saving using these "on-demand" apps. For a mom who is trying to juggle 2 children, yes, I can see this as a huge help. But for the vast majority of the target demographic (young, single-ish, urban upper middle class folks), we're not gaining hours in a day. We're experiencing instant gratification. We're stimulating the reward centers in our brain that remind us how great it is to be 2 again: press a button, get a prize. I recently started coming to the realization that the "on-demand" lifestyle is having a much more detrimental affect on my life enjoyment. When I'm consumed with messaging, pressing buttons, working, social media, filling my head with anxiety of the next thing, I am losing myself in the future. It takes an enormous amount of effort to be mindful. Cooking, engaging with others, sitting in silence and letting thoughts bubble up, and even chores. These are all little moments that keep me grounded and self-aware and I've think that has made me a better person.

wutbrodo 12y ago
> For a mom who is trying to juggle 2 children, yes, I can see this as a huge help. But for the vast majority of the target demographic (young, single-ish, urban upper middle class folks), we're not gaining hours in a day. Wat. The mom in this example may find apps like this more _necessary/useful_, but how does it save her more time than it saves the single person? I got back from the symphony a couple of hours ago and need to get some laundry detergent and other sundries: instead of wasting a good chunk of the part of my day that overlaps with regular hours (when concerts, restaurants, parties, parks, meetups, shows, etc are all open), I spent 4 minutes at 11 pm ordering that stuff before going to bed. Perhaps if your free time consists of sitting on your couch staring at a blank wall, then maximizing free time is not particularly useful, but for those of us who actually do things in our free time, making chores more efficient is a no-brainer. (Though in my case this particular example is a little less salient because I live within half a mile of multiple walgreens so I can usually pick sundries up on my way home. The general principle still applies).

invalidOrTaken 12y ago

From the other side: I worked for one of the on-demand valet services in SF for a few months a few months ago. Basically I loitered around on the street all day, waiting for my company-issued iPhone to send me running or biking to either pick up someone's car or return it. What was driven (ba-dum) home to me was how buildings in a city are built defensively, to keep out the riff-raff (myself being a member of such). The implications are somewhat worrying.

prawn 12y ago

I feel like this is a natural response to our lives having us interact with so many people. Some might like the atmosphere that comes from crowd experiences (sports, parades, etc) but we're generally not especially comfortable around strangers. I enjoy interacting with family, friends and colleagues, but less so random people passing on the street. We evolved in groups in which you might recognise or know detail about everyone around you. People often talk about tribes or townships of 150 people. We're shutting in not from everyone, but from those outside that circle of 150 people. I think our future virtual lives (building on current social networks) will allow us to very carefully manage our interactions with others. We will be somewhat insulated from the masses whether they are abroad or down the street.

igonvalue 12y ago

In a sufficiently frictionless economy, people will hire each other to do the things they'd rather not do themselves. This is generally acknowledged as a net positive for society[0], and surely the author doesn't manufacture her own electronics, build her own house, or grow her own food. What's so extraordinary about delivery services? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

anupshinde 12y ago

I started working from home as an employee and then moved out of the job to be an independent consultant working from home. I enjoyed the freedom, there was so much I could do apart from work after saving on daily travel and lesser restriction on time. Slowly, it turned the other way round - I got shut-in. Started from not having to go to local store daily - because it was a waste of time. I could not relate to a calendar-day. Sometimes I would start my work at 6pm in evening and sometimes at 3am in the morning. I tried to discipline myself, but it did not work out for valid reasons. And I started introverting due to lack of social contacts. Health wasn't an issue - because home gyms were good enough and I think those kept me off any depression. The shut-in introduces pretty bad habits. The "freedom" was out, I was working most of the time - it almost felt like a self-imposed prison in the name of discipline and saving time. Sometimes I have wondered if my life was any better than placing my brain in a box bionically connected to a computer. Now, I make it a habit to go out once every day or couple of days, same time for 45 mins-1 hour a bit after the busy day starts for most. It is a HUGE waste of time but it acts as a tether for my work day, makes me feel grateful for what I have and surprisingly, results in better productivity.

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Oh god this is so familiar. Work from home, too, pays the bills just fine but I've lost any semblance of schedule. Barely need to go out anymore, just for groceries but my gf who goes out daily and loves to cook likes to do this part, only occasionally do I run to the store to get some things for her. So I barely get out. Been meaning to go out on a daily basis but I think I have DSPD [0] and so I tend to wake up late, sleep really late (or early in the morning). It's terrible really, I feel like a bum or a teenage kid sleeping like this but it's like I'm programmed to act like a 3 year old in the morning, the self-discipline required to get out is insane while I've generally always had a bit of a spartan lifestyle haha. It boggles my mind how hard it is for me to get up. And I absolutely can't sleep at night consistently. Even if I wake up at 8AM, work out heavy for 2 hours, spend a day draining my brain concentrating for hours, meet people for hours and go around town doing groceries and am physically tired, I can't sleep. And then at 4-5AM it hits me like a train. Sometimes I'll power through, not sleeping because I know if I sleep at 4, I'll wake up at 12. So instead I'll try not to sleep and power through until the evening, and then yes I can finally sleep at night that day. But then that next day I generally still wake up at 12. Even if I ease into it and change my sleeping schedule by 1 hour every two days, at some point it gets reset. Anyway the point of all this is that I tend to wake up shortly after noon and I just don't want to go out for an hour at that point, all I want to do is get some work done before I need to clean up, help prepare dinner, spend time with my gf etc. After sleeping in so late, the last thing I want to do is spend the first hour walking around outside. So I postpone going outside to the evening and I never really do, especially if it's dark and cold like now. In that way it's exactly like you said, a self-imposed prison in the name of work and saving time. And then a little later it's 12PM and I've still got hours ahead of me, but there's no way I'm going outside at 3AM. (I used to as a teenager, but now as an adult I'd just feel like a freak and my gf would get super worried and want to have 'a talk' if I started doing that haha. Also I'd be bored out of my mind if it's dark and deserted. Also, no Vitamin D at night!) Writing all of this down is confronting haha, looks like my life is a mess. Still trying to find some balance to all of this. I've been meaning to just get a regular job again, but I'm genuinely afraid I couldn't do the 9-5 schedule, as I basically went straight into freelance work out of college and both college and freelance work allowed weird schedules. The hope is that the pressure to conform to this model for fear of getting fired etc forces me to keep to the schedule. Would love any more ideas or experiences if you want to share :) 0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder

BadassFractal 12y ago

Any Alfred users in SF yet? Thoughts? Seems interesting.

rdlecler1 12y ago

Most of these benefits are being subsidized by VC money (and pension fund LPs). The only reason I enjoyed my $2.25 LyftLine rides last month was because Lyft was burning through their VC money trying to build enough supply/demand to get better scale. Thank you California Teachers Pension Fund! Even with 20-30% markups these companies will not make money without big assumptions about moving down the cost curve. When the VC party end for these companies, it will end for us too, and then we'll have to go to the store to buy our own damn gluten free kale! Until then ladies and gentlemen, we live like aristocrats!

roghummal 12y ago

You'd think that ordering from one service ("WindowRun") around the same times, the same days, would deliver a familiar face now and then. Nah. People are abundant, flexible, and most of all disposable.

raverbashing 12y ago

Yes, I'm afraid the world is going on a direction where there will be two kinds of people: those serving coffee at Starbucks and those going there to order coffee and work off their laptops. (Or maybe it's even worse and they'll stay at home and order their cups online) It's a dystopian analogy, but one that's sounding more real every day.

normloman 12y ago

"Mallon is a 26-year-old in New York City who works as a branding sales consultant to tech companies, regularly working from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. " What? Who the hell thinks this is healthy? This person is literally filling all their waking life with work. Even if you love the shit out of your job, you're neglecting your mental and physical health by working that long. (And in all likelihood, she doesn't love the shit out her job. You'll be pressed to find just one person on Earth who'd be happy spending every hour of their day "branding". And I'm a marketing manager!) And it's not like this person doesn't have other options. She makes enough money to live in a fancy San Francisco apartment and hire on-demand services to do everything. So she's making bank. But all that money's just going to keep up an expensive lifestyle that she doesn't even have time to enjoy. I just hope she's got a plan. Maybe save as much as possible and retire early. Otherwise, what is she doing with her life?

unimportant 12y ago
Welcome to NY, where everybody outside of Brooklyn is a high achiever who thinks it's necessary to fill his life with as much work as possible, as otherwise someone else might get his job / he might miss out on a promotion.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

serve_yay 12y ago

I prefer to just not be so busy. Busyness is not a virtue. But then, I guess with that attitude I'll be working for Alfred one day.

natmaster 12y ago

But then when the 'servants' are replaced by robots people will complain that 'jobs' are lost.

jokoon 12y ago

Urbanization, clerk type jobs and the information age discourage us to have human contact. But it's expected since in apartment buildings you tend to be overwhelmed with the amount of people who are around you: you wish you could talk and meet with some of them, but it will never happen, because urbanism tend to de-socialize people: apartments are build like prison cells. Other services like uber, couchsurfing, airbnb, meetup, want to do the opposite.

halov 12y ago

From my perspective, it's generally the working culture (long working hours) of the country/city/communities that make people "shut-in" - not the fact they order online. What choice you have if you work from 8 am to 9 pm? I assume delivery guys would be "shut-in" as well if their job obligations wouldn't take them outdoors.

jhoechtl 12y ago

“NEVER LEAVE HOME AGAIN.” http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html

zby 12y ago

It was not in that article - but I wander how do the guys using it feel about the security implications of it.

Tsugumo 12y ago

VR headsets will exacerbate the issue, and make it more popular in media.

oceanfinance 12y ago

LOAN OFFER Do you need an urgent loan? Apply Now and get your cash urgently by replying with your request! Do You Need Any Kind of Loan? Apply Now. * Arrangements to Borrow Your Required Loan Amount * Choose between 1 to 20 years to repay. * Choose between monthly and annual repayment plan .. * Flexible loan terms and conditions. All these plans and more,contact us now. Email: oceanfinance2014@gmail.com Regards Management

lucio 12y ago

Please, please stop the freaking vacuum cleaner... why, god, why?

oceanfinance 12y ago

Lancey 12y ago

Having worked as a delivery guy, I always find it weird that everyone points to this "shut-in economy" as representing some sort of classism. You can do deliveries for Amazon or drive for Uber while also utilizing these services yourself. It'd depend a lot on tips (techies don't tip well so this might be a problem in San Francisco), but it's not like you're stuck on one side of the fence here.

lucio 12y ago

The point of view of the author is left-depressive. Maybe that's the reason why the comments get into depression issues Having an easy job-opportunity as a delivery-person, or Uber-driver or freelance-(anything) is a good thing, not a bad thing. If you enjoy doing shopping maybe is a good thing that you can make shopping for others as a living. Who is a happier? The person cleaning the apartment while you're working or you? If you're getting home at 1am, stressed, unhappy, already thinking of tomorrow's work, and he/she is getting home to share a nice family dinner... Who is happier?

unimportant 12y ago

I'm living in a developing country and I'm glad online grocery delivery exists. The nearest supermarket is 30min walk away, taking a cab would cost money and time too (I don't have a car) and the nearer wet market (about 15min walk away) is just a huge mess with everybody looking unhappy, prices needing haggling and quality being much lower. My quality of living has gone up a lot since then and I'm saving a lot of time as well.

jmzbond 12y ago

I agree with many of the points in this article, though I think it's interesting that this strikes a chord. Because this is just a more micro version of the macro-economic chase for comparative advantage and efficiency, where we outsource production to developing countries, whether it be clothing or call centers, or whatever. Same end goal right? Cheaper than doing it yourself, implying that you free up your own resources to do... well more [service oriented/ white collar] work. I guess the one thing about the shut-in economy is that if we can think about these social issues, then there's hope we can also think about slave labor, or child labor, etc. when they are employed by major businesses (the original "apps") we buy from all the time.

seeingfurther 12y ago

We are becoming a society of eloi and morlocks

KathrynShantz1 12y ago

What happens when shut-ins have families - and consequently don't know other parents or kids? Things start to go downhill from a life experience perspective.

eddy_chan 12y ago
I actually think a lot less people would be shut-ins if they had kids. All those 'menial chores' are actually become interesting because you're 'not just doing the grocery shopping anymore'. You're taking you kids shopping so they can explore the supermarket with them. They'll ask questions about what you buy and why you buy it. Of course they'll nag you to buy something for them as well. Kids will nag you to go out to the park, to the museum or whatever other local attraction there is and along the way you'll get social interaction which helps balance things out.