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Beyond Instant Gratification
The Glorious Future of Consumerism in the USA
The USA may be behind the rest of the OECD in primary and secondary education, in health outcomes, in gun violence, and in overall quality of life. But it is without question the ultimate convenience society.
Everything is designed around making it as easy as possible for people to acquire and then use products and services. Corporations regard US citizens as large buckets into which endless product can be poured, and US citizens eagerly perform their consumption duties even at horrific cost to their health and credit scores.
European manufacturers, meanwhile, go to perverse lengths to make it difficult to obtain certain things (for example, try finding stock cubes or bouillon in Italy, or decent pesto sauce in Switzerland) and thereafter difficult to use things (once again, Italy is the prime exemplar, selling vanilla essence in sealed glass tubes which presumable one cuts open with an industrial laser or diamond-tipped rotary saw).
The USA, conversely, is all about speed of purchase and speed of consumption.
More! Better! Faster!
US citizens increasingly demand instant gratification in all things. Streaming video enables us to watch an entire series over the course of a weekend rather than have to wait for a new episode…
