> Online payments shouldn't be harder than physically going to a store and paying for the item

Why ?

It's probably more energy efficient to have trucks going to the few branches for pickups than to every single individual house.

I don't see why it "shouldn't" be, especially since it's optional

> That suggests a really sorry state of things,

The really sorry state of things are people ordering toilet paper &co in same day delivery on amazon because they can't bother walking 5 min to the closest store