It’s Too Easy To Buy Stuff
And too hard to get rid of it
At the moment, there is a garden hose sitting on my kitchen counter. It’s been there for four days. It’s not an art piece.
The reason there is a garden hose sitting on my counter is because we thought that our previous garden hose had been stolen when work was done on our apartment building. Without putting too much thought into why someone would actually steal a garden hose (is there a rash of lawn equipment theft sweeping Brooklyn????), we went ahead and ordered a new one from Amazon.
It arrived the next day. Only then did we stop and say, “Should we call our landlord and let her know that something was stolen when the work was being done?” Which eventually led to discovering that the original garden hose had not, in fact, been robbed and was sitting quite comfortably in a closet.
Did we return the new one? Of course not. That would be too much of a hassle. So now we are the rare New Yorkers who own two garden hoses.
The ease with which human beings can now purchase things on the internet is generally seen as a positive. You’d be hard-pressed to find a DTC company that doesn’t tout how convenient it makes life for its customers. But I worry that it’s also making those same customers soft and less discerning.
I’m a big believer that you learn a lot from doing things the hard way. If you’re a person who takes the stairs instead of the elevator every day, you have a greater appreciation for the rare occasions when you do take the elevator. You’re also less disgruntled on the days when the elevator isn’t working.
Shopping can be similar. By making the effort to see something in person instead of just clicking “Add to cart,” you’re more likely to buy something you want/need and less likely to be disappointed by the purchase when it arrives.
Of course, more IRL shopping is much easier to do in a place like New York City, where so much exists within a 10-block radius. But that still doesn’t stop people from ordering Seamless from places that they can see from their apartment window.
So perhaps it’s time to reevaluate convenience as a brand value. “Removing friction” is something you hear a lot of companies talk about. But friction doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The act that allowed the vast majority of humans to come into existence wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable without it.
Update: Over the course of writing this, the new garden hose has made its way off of the kitchen counter and into the backyard. The old one is still sitting comfortably in a closet.
The Radical Origins of 2021’s Favorite Font
One of the things I’ve always wanted to exist is a Shazam for fonts. I’m not a font nerd, who can endlessly reel off font names like a sports fan spews stats, but I am a font appreciator, who at least knows the difference between a serif and a sans serif. In that vein, I really enjoyed this story about Windsor, which has its roots in the iconic Whole Earth Catalog and has been deployed for all manner of bootleg merch of late.
–Justin
Here is New York – E.B. White
Unlike Justin, I am not one of the real New Yorkers who never left during the pandemic. But I am back in NYC for a minute for the first time in over a year. While I was away, I longingly consumed a lot of NYC-centric content, from Annie Hall to Frances Ha to this 1948 essay from E.B. White. Highly recommended for anyone with an affinity for New York City.
–Andrew
BREAKING SAWGRASS: TPC Sawgrass from the Tips - Ep. 1
Aside from prepping a Sunday afternoon nap, I’ve never been a big fan of watching golf. What I enjoy about Erik Anders Lang’s golf vlogs Random Golf Club Films is the relatability. Pros playing pro courses is an entirely different sport than my friends and me playing local municipal courses. With this format of having golfers of various skill levels playing PGA Tour courses, you get to see the parts of the pro courses you’d actually see if you were lucky enough to play them. It captures the beauty and frustration of the sport, only one of which is conveyed on PGA Tour broadcasts.
–Andrew