America’s Need for Speed Never Ends Well

Last month, I was savagely attacked by The Onion: “Package That Arrived in 24 Hours Sits Unopened on Table for Week,” read the headline. The reality was even worse than the satire. A package delivered in just two days had been sitting on the desk in front of me since January. I still haven’t opened it.

With more than half of U.S. adults wielding Amazon Prime memberships, I’m clearly not alone in getting deliveries faster than I probably need them. All injury aside, this bit of ridicule illustrates one specific irony of contemporary consumer life: Despite worker shortages, supply-chain snarls, and a pandemic that has oriented many people’s lives around the home, the quest for faster delivery has actually intensified over the past two years. At least 36 percent of Americans are now , while delivery apps such as Shipt, for example, promise some deliveries in as little as an hour.