We are living in the midst of a 1950’s Era dystopian science fiction novel and we don’t really know how we got here. Ayn Rand feared that government control would seep into every part of our lives as humans, but today we find ourselves under the control of industry barons with companies named after long rivers, prefixes, and made up words rhyming with doodle.
Ecommerce has broken the supply chain, according to Christopher Mills in his recent investigation published in a book entitled Arriving Today. We all have noticed the decline in quality of the products we can purchase from textiles to paper and electronics. We have traded faster and cheaper for the quality of products and of services. Quality has been replaced by a dystopian Henry Ford conveyer line that extends from product material sourcing through to the end product delivery.
History demonstrates that people are never satisfied with what they can buy. This is evidenced throughout the ages from spice trade conflicts and empire expansions, to modern times that saw the adoption of crazy, heretofore unneeded features on fruit phones that drove customers to line up in massive, day-long queues just to be part of the early adopter, first-to-market crowd.
All of it unveils the insatiable desire that we have as humans for new, different, better, cheaper, faster products. That is why we are here now in a world where local business is overcomes by cheaper products purchased at the click of a button in an app.
It is not the 21st century robber barons who now offer us a burgeoning world where we buy and live inside the Internet, goggles firmly planted on our faces to block out reality. These innovators are merely responding to consumer demand with options, as they push the envelope of technology. It is human nature that has led us to this point. Even the Bible makes reference to this fundamental feature of humanness: Proverbs 27 states that, “The eyes of man are never satisfied. “ This is a thought foundational to nearly all religions and the origins of which are pondered by college professors in disciplines that range from philosophy to biochemistry. Why is man so driven to seek satisfaction in the physical world but never find it? We may never know that answer but the more important question I think is what does this mean for our collective future?