I don't feel like ordering things online makes me a shut-in at all - just the opposite.<p>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.<p>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?<p>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.<p>Retail shopping is usually freaking <i>depressing</i> - 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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>I'm trapped in an un-ending present where I grow older but never grow as a person.<p>ps - anything you have to suggest is something i've heard already x10 and have or currently trying, such as therapy.
Think about all this specialization.<p>This is what a "good economy" looks like. Parents who work long hours so they can afford to rent some great apartment and buy <i>stuff</i> 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 <i>etc.</i> 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.<p>We are materially richer, but what about the social connections?<p>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."<p>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.
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.<p>I would never outsource my chores. I just enjoy them too much.
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."<p>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.<p>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.
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!<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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?
<i>Van Ekert’s answer: “It’s more to dedicate more time to working.”</i><p>With the arrival of every functionary serving as a reminder of what could happen if you slow down your pace on the treadmill.<p>This article makes me glad I don't live in SF any more.
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.<p>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.<p>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.
>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.”<p>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 <i>not</i> pay someone to clean your bathroom and use that time for working?
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!
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).
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.<p>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.
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.<p>Having my laundry, groceries and packages taken care of for me allows me to maximize my weekends.<p>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.
<i>> “We’re trying to remove the taboo and the guilt that you should have to do it,” says Alfred’s CEO</i><p>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.<p>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.<p>> <i>When signing up, customers can choose the option of not seeing their Alfred</i><p>haha. wow. i guess that's one way of dealing with it.
From the other side:<p>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.<p>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).<p>The implications are somewhat worrying.
"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. "<p>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!)<p>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.<p>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?
> 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.<p>A case of letting the destination (free time for socialising) overrule the journey (social interaction in your everyday life)?<p>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?<p>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)?
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.
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
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.<p>InstaLackey.com and ImposterPool.com are both available...<p>* I have to admit that I just spent five minutes struggling with the urge to build a MVP instead of hitting "Add Comment."
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.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD13GrccRPw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD13GrccRPw</a>
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?<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage</a>
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.
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?).<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>I enjoy interacting with family, friends and colleagues, but less so random people passing on the street.<p>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.<p>We're shutting in not from everyone, but from those outside that circle of 150 people.<p>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.
This article made me think of the short story Manna:<p><a href="http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm</a><p>The only difference being that instead of being directed with headsets, people are now being directed with apps.<p>I wonder how long until the world reaches chapter 3?
Wow, the meal delivery is like American dabbawala:
<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indian-food-delivery-service-envy-fedex-n156291" rel="nofollow">http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indian-food-delive...</a>
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.
> 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 ...<p>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.
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.
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.<p>Almost all of the rest is now. "Spare capacity" economy, "arbitrage economy" or "serving economy" would be better terms.
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.
The point of view of the author is left-depressive. Maybe that's the reason why the comments get into depression issues<p>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.<p>Who is a happier? The person cleaning the apartment while you're working or you?<p>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?
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.
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?
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.<p>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.
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.<p>Other services like uber, couchsurfing, airbnb, meetup, want to do the opposite.
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.
I'm living in a developing country and I'm glad online grocery delivery exists.<p>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.<p>My quality of living has gone up a lot since then and I'm saving a lot of time as well.
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?<p>Is it different in scale or in kind?
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.<p>(Or maybe it's even worse and they'll stay at home and order their cups online)<p>It's a dystopian analogy, but one that's sounding more real every day.
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.<p>People are abundant, flexible, and most of all disposable.
Anyone else having trouble with Medium articles this week --- menu items transparently displaying <i>over</i> the article? (Android/"internet" app)
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.
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???