The Problem with Trading Experiences for Efficiency

Years ago, I adored visiting toy stores. Those magical places where – as French Poet Charles Baudelaire put it – “all of life found [can be found] in miniature, and much more vivid in colour, cleaner and shinier than real life.” I speak in the past tense not because my interest in toys has waned (it hasn’t). Rather, it’s because – at least here in the US – toy stores have more-or-less vanished. Small, family-owned operations were put out of business by big-box retailers like Toys “R” Us and KB Toys. Then those very same chains went out of existence.

When I was a child, a world without toy stores was unfathomable. But I also didn’t think there could be a world without video stores, or music stores, or fabric stores. Indeed, the “reatailpocalypse” that followed the global financial crisis and continued through the COVID-19 pandemic has seen as many as 12,000 brick-and-mortar stores go out of business in a single year – including many long-standing chains like Sears and Kmart.

In one of my classes, we discuss an excellent article by Britta Clark. In it, she discusses how one of the great injustices of the climate crisis is that we are – through our actions– causing certain experiences to go out of existence. It’s likely, for example, that African elephants will be gone from the wild in our lifetime. The same might be true of Joshua Trees in Joshua Tree National Park, or more nebulous experiences like a summer sufficiently temperate to enjoy things like camping, hiking, and picnicking. As this happens, we are permanently depriving future generations of these experiences, and – as Clark argues – the ability of those people to live lives of their own design.

When we discuss Clark’s paper, I (somewhat facetiously) raise the example of renting a movie from a video store on a Friday night – something that hasn’t been a possibility for nearly a decade. I ask my students whether it’s unjust that they’ve been permanently deprived of this magical experience. My intention is to demonstrate the potential limits of Clark’s argument – since, as I understood it, there’s no obvious injustice in this case.

But more recently, I’ve started to change my mind.

The digital age – culminating in the genesis of AI – has seen an inexorable push towards convenience and efficiency: of having access to as much as possible with as little effort as possible. Online retail, at-home streaming, and a proliferation of food delivery services have provided us with the ability to have everything we want with minimal fuss. But I can’t help feeling like something has been lost along the way: namely, the experience.

In my home country of New Zealand, we pride ourselves on our café culture. This isn’t because we’re coffee snobs (though, admittedly, many of us certainly are). Rather, it’s because there’s something ingrained into our national psyche: a recognition of the importance of taking time; of enjoying the experience. Whether it’s catching up with friends, holding a study group, or even interviewing for a job – these interactions almost always center around the café experience: Taking the time to luxuriate in a flat white and a savory pastry, and – after much hemming and hawing – deciding to order just one more treat from the window cabinet.

Upon arriving in the US, it was somewhat jarring to discover that café culture was (outside of certain cosmopolitan oases) mostly non-existent. Here, coffee is less an experience, and more a commodity; something to be efficiently obtained via a drive-thru, placed in a to-go cup, and quaffed while completing other more “important” tasks. This trend has reached its most pure synthesis with 7 Brew – a “coffee shop” that boasts 20,000 drink combinations served exclusively via a drive-thru window. As a Kiwi, this entire concept is anathema. (At least Starbucks, for all of its faults, gives you somewhere to sit.) Yet 7 Brew is currently the fastest growing brand in America. And last week, I read with disgust of how the chain – with its latest promotion – was boasting hours-long wait lines around the country.

As I write this, I feel like the proverbial man yelling at a cloud. I worry that I’m a mere breath away from uttering my very first “back in my day.” But at the same time, I don’t think I’m alone in mourning the experience. The last few years have seen a renewed hunger for analogue pastimes. Take music, for example. While digital streaming saw a 4.7% increase in revenue in the first half of 2026, vinyl sales instead increased by 17.7%, while CD sales grew by a whopping 58.6%. At the same time, previously defunct retailers (including Toys “R” Us) are re-emerging as nostalgic pop-ups. To me, these demonstrate a renewed focus not just on the commodities we desire, but also the experience of how we obtain them.

Is it always wrong for us to skip the experience, and go straight for the commodity? Of course not. There are many circumstances in which efficiency is a necessity. But we also need to pay careful attention to what we’re rushing for. It’s one thing if we’re using our newly-found free time to pursue what we’re passionate about – to further ourselves and the relationships we have with others. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. We’re less likely to engage in social interactions (and spend less time doing so) than we did a decade ago. At the same time, we’ve become the most overworked developed nation in the world. Labor productivity is at an all-time high. The benefits, it seems, are largely going to corporations. Of course, many of us need to work – and given the current financial climate, many of us need to work a lot more. But at the same time, the average American spends 7 hours and 18 minutes of their day looking at a screen for non-work related purposes. And for much of that time, we’re merely being exposed to the ministrations of (and being convinced to buy the products of) those very same corporations.

I’m not sure what the moral implications of all of this are. Or if there even are any. But I do know this: every dollar we spend is a vote for how we want our world to be. And every vote for efficiency is a vote for fewer experiences. At the very least, that realization has forced me to be more mindful of how I’m using my vote.