How Amazon is making us all “Constant Consumers”
Odds are, more money won’t make you happy. Even if you win the lottery. Neither does shopping. At least not for long.
The research on happiness tells us that we are happier when we invest in experiences rather than things.
But we are shopping for things more than ever. Meanwhile, depression, anxiety, and suicide rates keep rising. It’s like we’re trying to fill the hole in our hearts with online bargains and blockbuster sales. So this week I’m exploring materialism.
In this edition:
- How Amazon is making us “constant consumers”
- How cheap prices and frictionless shopping lead us to accumulate more
- Why middle schoolers are the biggest materialists
- What it’s like to buy a private jet
- What it’s like to throw out everything you own except 15 things.
Read widely. Read wisely.
Max
Recommended Readings
1. Amazon’s mission is to make customer identity more primary than citizenship
“The Constant Consumer” – Real Life Magazine (14 min)
Summary
An examination of the implicit philosophical change that accompanies Amazon’s unstoppable growth. It is changing us as a society, making us more consumption-focused more of our time than ever before.
Selection
“In light of Amazon’s all-encompassing ambitions, the strategy behind several of the company’s most important product initiatives — Alexa, Amazon Prime, physical retail stores (including Amazon Go and Whole Foods), and Amazon Key — becomes clearer. These products seek to redefine what being a customer means by immersing us more completely within the Amazon universe.
“Formerly, being a customer was a role one assumed upon physically entering a store or ordering something from a company. Amazon promises to create a newer type of environment, a hybrid of the digital and the physical, that lets us permanently inhabit that role: the world as Everything Store, which we’re always inside.”
2. How online shopping and cheap prices are turning America into a nation of hoarders
“We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things” – The Atlantic (10 min)
Summary
We are spending more and more money on things for ourselves and buying bigger houses to store everything. Why? Because stuff is so cheap and shopping is so frictionless. Lots of good stats in this one.
Selection
“In 2017, Americans spent $240 billion—twice as much as they’d spent in 2002—on goods like jewelry, watches, books, luggage, and telephones and related communication equipment, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which adjusted those numbers for inflation. Over that time, the population grew just 13 percent. Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period.”
3. The most materialistic age is middle school
“Why Kids Want Things” – The Atlantic (6 min)
Summary
Interview with Marsha Richins, a professor focused on studying materialism, on how materialism develops in childhood.
Selection
“I think of seventh grade as being the worst age of a person’s life. It’s really a fraught time, and there’s all this insecurity that kids have about Who am I? Do people like me? What kind of person am I? So how do we navigate that? Well, our appearance is one of the things we navigate with. So what does a kid see when they see another kid? They see the expression on their face, they see the body language, the posture, and the clothes they’re wearing. And so a kid who’s not very self-confident in navigating this is going to maybe feel a little more self-confident if they’re wearing the right kind of clothes rather than the wrong kind of clothes. Here we’re learning, right off the bat, that having things can help us define who we are.”
Read the whole interview here.
4. What it’s like to buy a private jet
“My First Gulfstream” – Vanity Fair (32 min)
Summary
An anonymous tech mega-millionaire describes the process of buying a jet for himself, why he did it, how he overcame his reservations, and how insanely complicated and expensive the decision became. Fascinating reading, whether you find it vulgar or inspiring.
Selection
On asking friends about what they thought of his idea to buy a personal jet:
“Those who have jets had a strong positive response. There was an almost conspiratorial tone to the conversation, as if I had confessed to a secret passion they shared. People I had known for years without hearing a word about their plane would suddenly wax eloquent about it. In retrospect, the reason was obvious. You cannot really talk about your jet to non–jet owners, unless you want to come off as some kind of braggart. So, after biting their tongues all that time, jet owners were happy to help when somebody had a sincere interest in joining the club.
“The disapprovals were just as strong. Responses ranged from the barely articulate “Why spend all that money on a frigging jet, for Chrissake?” to holier-than-thou put-downs. “That is not a use of capital I find acceptable” was one retort. People worth billions could suddenly sound like Marxists when confronted with the private-jet issue. One famously parsimonious billionaire I talked to said, “Jesus, do you know what those cost to operate? Maybe four grand an hour! Who is worth that?” I offered on the spot to buy the next year of his time for $5,000 an hour, as long as I got his profits in return. Sadly for me, he rethought his position.
“My favorite reply came from Warren Buffett. “That sort of prurient interest isn’t suitable for a youngster like you,” he said in a father-knows-best tone. Accepting the inevitable, as a good father should, he concluded, “but when you get it, I want a ride.” Warren is famous for a down-to-earth sensibility that seems utterly removed from the world of private jets. Despite this, he owns one, which he christened The Indefensible as partial penance for the incongruous luxury.”
Read the whole article here. Interesting throughout.
5. A millionaire who sold everything and lived out of a single suitcase
“How Minimalism Brought Me Freedom and Joy” – James Altchuler (32 min)
Summary
James Altschuler represents the polar opposite worldview of the jet-buyer. A few years ago he threw out everything he owned except 15 things. This piece is pretty interesting.
Selection
“Does minimalism mean not having a lot of possessions?”
“No, not at all. I think minimalism means having as little as you require. That means different things to everyone.
“For me, having little means I don’t have to think about things that I own.
“Some people don’t like that. I know many people who love roots. Who love being sentimental towards items. This is fine. Who am I to judge?
“The other day I threw out my college diploma that was in storage. I threw out everything I had in storage. The last objects left in my life.
“At 48 years old I have nothing and nowhere. Other than the people I love and the experiences I love.
“A friend asked me, “You worked hard for that diploma. Are you sure you want to throw it out?”
“Yes. I’ve worked harder for other things since then. I don’t keep all of these things around either. They are gone.”
Postscript
What would you do if you have $50,000 more tomorrow than you have today? Would you spend it? Would you save it? Invest it? Give it away? Would you pay off a debt and avoid a visit from a greasy guy from Jersey in a cheap suit?
How do you imagine you would feel? Do you think you’d be a lot happier? Less stressed? How long do you think that feeling would last? A day? A week? Six months? A lifetime?
From what I’ve read, the odds are that you would get a pop of happiness when you find out about the money (because happiness = expectations – reality). But the effect would wear off sooner than you’d think and you’d simply have a new baseline of expectations.
I’ve been thinking about the article about the guy who bought a jet. I know some will read that and will throw up in their mouths a little bit over the conspicuous consumption.
But the irony is some of those same people on a second home or send their kids to private school. Others would look at those choices and say they are just as selfish, just on a different scale. How could it be otherwise when one in four American households earnsless than $25,000 a year? Or when 736 million people live on less than $1.90 per day?
It is easy to point out someone else’s greed. It is harder to recognize it in yourself.
The article about Amazon’s subtle shifting of our values also has me thinking. Toward the end of the article, the author writes,
“As globalized platform consumerism erases more of what preceded it, replacing intricate social arrangements with individual links to large impersonal systems, it’s harder to remember what we’ve lost. Less and less equipped to imagine ourselves as anything but customers or users within those systems, we adopt the desires that companies like Amazon can best satisfy: convenience, choice, and frictionless consumption.”
That hit me like a hammer. He’s asking what if convenience, choice and frictionless consumption aren’t always prima facie good? And that got me thinking.
My daughter Gracie complains about going to soccer practice. She doesn’t like it because it’s hard. I’ve been trying to teach her that not all things that are good are easy or convenient. Character traits like perseverance, patience, and toughness are not built with convenience.
Likewise, having more choices aren’t always a good thing. Having more choices feels like having more freedom, but sometimes there is freedom in having limits. Read the wonderful book The Paradox of Choice or watch the Ted Talk for a full explanation.
From my own experience, I’ll say this: We live in a school district that allows parents to choose which schools their kids will go to – a consumer’s dream! When I grew up I just went to the neighborhood school that led to the neighborhood high school. Now we can choose where to send our kids. Sounds great. But that means we feel obligated to spend a lot of time thinking about which school to send them too. It means that our kids won’t necessarily go to school with our neighbors’ kids. It means that they won’t necessarily go to the same high school as their friends whom they met in elementary school. I had the same friends from first grade through senior year. My kids won’t have that. Choice is nice, but there are tradeoffs.
The articles this week have me thinking about the amount of time I think about money, about the cars we drive and the house we live in. And how much am I thinking about being a friend, a neighbor, a church member, a brother? Where will I direct my energy and time? How happy will those choices make me?
Read widely. Read wisely.
– Max
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