New York’s ubiquitous ‘instant delivery’ apps are almost certainly making us worse, more useless, people
I remember very clearly my first pineapple on ice at a corner deli in New York. It was on the north-east corner of Columbus and 57th Street, a sprawling store front spilling flowers and fresh produce that, along with the diner next door, stayed open all night. There is pineapple in London, and 24-hour shops, but this was different. In the first flush of enthusiasm for my new city, everything about that deli seemed outlandishly great. Abundance! Convenience! Pineapple, freshly cut and packaged on ice! I might as well have arrived from somewhere still under rationing.
Fifteen years later and the city has changed. (I have, too. I would never buy cut fruit from a deli these days; I’m far too fussy about whether the prep area meets food safety standards.) Corner delis remain, but under pain of competition from a new generation of delivery alternatives that make getting up off the sofa to walk half a block for some milk seem like Captain Oates striking out on the ice floe. And it’s not only Instacart and FreshDirect, with their lumbering two-hour delivery windows. It’s the new fleet of bike-enabled apps – among them GoPuff and Getir – that promise to deliver any item within 15 minutes.
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
