Amazon dash dystopia! I HAVE THOUGHTS.

So The Worst Things for Sale, a historically grumpy and hilarious misser-of-points about household objects, alerted me to the impending Amazon Dash button dystopia, and then I went looking for other opinions and some dude (significant) bloviating about how we'll miss those moments of emotional openness and vulnerability and quiet reflection that we used to find while shopping for more trash bags. Ian Crouch seems like a historically grumpy fellow as well, and I don't want to deny him his fun. And of course I have my questions about the Internet of Things, namely that the parts involved in making a coffee maker semi-sentient, or littering your house with individual, disposable plastic buttons with wifi transmitters contain a lot of ecologically complex metals and have to be manufactured by somebody.

At the same time, it's appealing to rant about the idea that we need to be emotionally available to our trash bag purchasing, and I'm going to do so.( Read more... )