The Future Of Commerce Belongs To The Frictionless

For a minute there, at the start of the global lockdown, it seemed to be an open question: Would we all be able to get everything we needed delivered? Three months in, while nobody’s getting two-day deliveries anymore, it does seem as if Amazon alone might be able to provide almost all of us with our commodity needs. Way back before Jeff Bezos began delivering almost everything to everyone, there was another open question: Was ordering just a few things at a time from Amazon bad for the environment? The answer is a little surprising. While it’s obviously more wasteful and damaging to place several small orders as opposed to fewer larger ones, it’s also obvious that having Amazon deliver everything to everyone is the more sustainable option than going to the store ourselves. The earth is thanking us for keeping our cars in the driveway. (We, in turn, would like to thank every single delivery person on earth.) Maybe Amazon was so named because Jeff Bezos may just reforest not just the Amazon, but the planet itself. Who saw that one coming? Read more at Wired.