The insanity of instant gratification

bought a shopping cart to replace the broken one. three days or less from China.

good ol Amazon. I tracked the number on the shipping label
 
Civilization has been moving toward this for centuries now. Pony Express is replaced by telegraph is replaced by telephone is replaced by email is replaced by facebook..... and on. Mail service is on the brink of collapse, UPS and it's clones are jumping through hoops to give faster and faster service. Not to mention cheaper. I think that the 3D printer idea is just a given any more. I expect to see something of it before I die and I'm 71.
 
Darthfeeble said:
Mail service is on the brink of collapse, UPS and it's clones are jumping through hoops to give faster and faster service. Not to mention cheaper.
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USPS is not on the brink of collapse. It hasn't missed a delivery in my lifetime, and is generally cheaper than FedEx and UPS. It has been losing money for a least a decade, but that just means its low prices are being subsidized by the government. For normal packages, I always use USPS. YMMV.
 
Coming back from China I must say I'm spoiled. Sunday delivery, same day delivery...it's just normal. People do that all the time, for free. You even get real time tracking of the parcel on the phone's map - and phone number of the courier, who will actually answer your call.

We'd better move on guys...
 
ptpdprinter said:
It has been losing money for a least a decade, but that just means its low prices are being subsidized by the government.
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It's Amazon that is subsidizing a big chunk, and the rest by taxpayers.

Yes, another government entity that should be private.
 
Huss said:
Not only did they not have them in stock, they don't carry that product and they don't deliver (I was working and could not get away).

So, no.
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i agree. i love the local shop but i have yet to wander in there and find what i'm looking for in stock.
 
valdas said:
but that's a bit of a problem... because at the end of the day there is no such thing as "free" - it is at somebody's expense...
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B2C giants like JD.com rely on its own courier network - they ship "free" ultimately at the consumers' cost, not unlike Amazon. We can't unsee the country's low wage standard, different working ethnics and fierce competition among service providers contributing to the low cost and extremely efficient (compared to what we have on this side of the pond) shipping - but still, for the millions currently enjoying the service, it just spoils.
 
valdas said:
but that's a bit of a problem... because at the end of the day there is no such thing as "free" - it is at somebody's expense...
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and part of the price is no more local shops...

Regards, David

PS And the next time you get something from China or thereabouts calculate the postage for an international delivery. It worries me.
 
Good to hear someone has good luck with Amazon. After waiting 10 days for an order from Amazon and the order not even being shipped after 10 days, a nice customer service lady had me cancel that order, re-order with $175 dollar shipping, and then she could change the order to 2 day free shipping. Some of it made it in 2 days, some in 3 days. I'm not finding Amazon that great at actually delivering.
 
Huss said:
When your local shop does not even carry the product, or the only way they can get it is by special ordering it (which you can do yourself), that is not part of the price.
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Hi,

Well, I think that they never did but they carried a pretty good range of things and kept most people happy. You still needed to go to a specialist for (say) Leica or MF...

And, in those good old days, my local shops might/would have the latest camera and the "kit" standard lens but I had to look around for the better (say f/1.4) lens and the f/1.2's were to order unless I made an expensive trip to the big city. And my local shop carried a cheap and dear range of bits and pieces like lens hoods but never every single make.

These days I blame makers too. I think they want to deal with one or two huge super dealers and ignore the rest. And they make it difficult for the smaller dealers too. Lens hoods are a good case for this discussion, they come in all shapes and sizes and don't just screw in but have to have the lens front modified, and so on. I thinking about my old Fuji X100 as I type this.

There's no reason why the big makers couldn't design things the old way and get the Chinese to supply those nice, cheap lens hoods... And I can think of a lot of other simple ideas that made buying equipment easy for us and easy for the dealers in the good old days.

Regards, David
 
Interesting story. Congrats to your new toys. ;)

Instant delivery is something we can here, in rural Germany, only dream of. Here an Amazon "prime" package often needs two days, despite their promise of next day delivery.
 
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