The incremental cost of an on-demand service for most anyone is fairly negligible. A black car from Uber is on average $4 more than an NYC taxi. Having Postmates deliver your favorite _____ from further downtown will run you about $7. Not cup-of-coffee-money, but close. Though depending on how many of these services you use, the frequency with which you use them, and the average transaction size, that changes. With new offerings in shipping, home cleaning, parking and doctor house-calls, it’s easy to see how they mount towards a meaningful “lifestyle tax” on a given person’s annual income.
The tech industry likes to proselytize the virtues of technology in that what may initially seem like services meant only to gratify the affluent, elite, or early-adopter communities eventually all move downstream to benefit the broader economy as costs fall. The smartphone and personal computer are terrific examples. With smartphone saturation in the US likely to be reached this year and on-demand businesses applying billions to market and design these experiences to be fast, intuitive, and more importantly aspirational, they are shifting towards mainstream users at an even accelerated clip.
Though in the midst of a worrying income inequality trend, what happens when these services do become available to the mainstream community that is eager to access them? Uber is arguably already a mainstream service. Can the broader economy afford that kind of lifestyle tax? Will the ease of use and nominal premium on an individual transaction distract users until it gets dangerously expensive in aggregate?
Really, you could pose this argument to any crop of companies carving out a new consumer category. But I’ve been struck at how easily these added premiums can nest themselves into my credit card without my noticing and how seductive it is to justify using “just one more” service to attempt to simplify my routine. The seamlessness, or near non-existence, of the payment experience for many of these services certainly helps.
We’re realistically a ways out from this becoming a true issue, and this post in some ways is a personal attempt to reconcile my own societal values from my capitalist ones. Though as these on-demand experiences become pervasive beyond the tech community, I’m curious what a responsible preemptive strategy might be. More broadly, it warrants questioning how we go about maintaining a mindfulness about who our users are *and* will be.
