The younger folks getting lunch delivered every day, they got new cars and not just new the better packages on those cars, their apartments have all sorts of amenities, great locations. I'm the "old guy" not just because of age but because I made my own sandwich and brought lunch. It's like all this is the default for them, they don't seem to notice.
They're 100% not wrong that opportunities are different compared to when I was their age, but at the same time, when I was their age I lived in a crappy apartment, drove a 15 year old basic car. My idea of going out was to some cheap place for dinner and paying for nosebleed seats on a weekday at the ballpark... these guys show up at the same fancy places I do / didn't eat at until much later in life.
I don't say this to ridicule them, but it seems like their concept of just sort of default consumerism is pretty heavy on the consuming.
Perhaps it's just because I live in London, but this a snapshot of my social circle right now. It's also no secret that the West is suffering from a mental health crisis.
With the weight of the world looming over me, a nice meal for lunch is about the only thing keeping me together (being slightly sarcastic here).
I do wonder, was it always this way? Genuine question - did you ever feel this way in your 20s/30s? Did your friends?
I worry a lot of folks just sort of live in the reality they consume on the internet, don't make their own space of sorts.
I hope though my perspective in my earlier comment might give you some insight into the general psyche of (at least some) younger folks.
My approach to this is:
- Stop watching the news, or paying attention to politics. You have almost certainly no control over anything they are reporting and almost none of it affects you in any way. I didn't pay any attention to the presidential race, for example. None of it was going to change my vote. I didn't watch the election night coverage; I watched a ball game and went to bed. I figured I'd hear the outcome the next day, I had zero control over it anyway so why stress about it?
- Cut down on social media. It's unnatural and unhealthy. Do more stuff that requires face-to-face interactions with people. Use social media as a communications tool to set this stuff up, but don't follow celebrities or people you don't know personally. Turn off all alerts that are not from your personal contacts. Don't like or forward memes. Try going places without your phone, to build up comfort at being without it or not constantly checking it. You know that until 15-20 years ago almost nobody had a phone when they were away from home.
It seems clear to me that the 1930's everyone was down too: between The Great War, the Influenza Pandemic, and then the Great Depression everyone was clear that the world was on the wrong track and couldn't continue the way it was going. Depending on their particular biases, lots of people ended up thinking Fascism was the answer, and lots others thought that Communism was the answer, but not nearly as many thought that (small-l) liberal democratic capitalism was the way to keep going- the world of 1932 seemed to discredit that entire mode of living. A fascinating book _Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time_ by Ira Katznelson argues that the American leaders who built the New Deal were aware of that, and that they created the New Deal in conscious opposition to either Fascism or Communism. Unless they acted RIGHT NOW, with a response of sufficient scale to offer something better one or the other would inevitably take power.
And today, decades after the end of the Cold War, leaders and people largely can't conceptualize any other way of organizing people and power, and if they do it's largely in dystopic stuff like "what if companies ruled everything." (This is what Francis Fukuyama meant by the End of History, not that events would stop but that the great struggle of how best to organize people and power was decided and capitalism and democracy won.) Which has meant that we're right back in the same situation, but no one seems to be taking seriously the threat of losing the fruits of the Enlightenment, so they aren't acting with sufficient vigor or scale to deal with the scope of the problem.
This isn't the behavior I've witnessed with the younger generation, at all, unless they came from money or working in a well to do job.
I don't think we can extrapolate this one.
An example to the contrary... a few years back I worked with a college hire who got a super fat signing bonus and made a plenty hefty salary for a first job, but he rented his friend's walk-in closet and almost never ate out. Within just a few years he had enough money for a downpayment on a home in one of the most expensive housing markets in the US. I don't think this type of frugality has ever been the norm, but it does exist in all generations.
I guess I live like this as my parents lived like this (though they didn't really talk about it, I just followed their model I guess). As a kid we had one car, we almost never ate out, we bought our clothes at Sears. My parents both had graduate degrees and made a good living but just didn't spend money unecessarily.
I don't understand it personally but did get an insight a few years ago. I had to move out of my house whilst I was renovating it for 6 months or so. Looked at the cheapest place I could that was somewhere nice in my town. It was fine for a single man, but the kitchen - Jesus, once you stood in it you could reach every surface and cupboard from being there.
I couldn't believe how shit it was. The estate agent just said "that's how kids live these days - they eat out, or order in"
(it was a few years before lockdown)
Unless you know where to look you will not find your local restaurants website via google. You will be redirected to grubhub or equivalent by many dark patterns on your way to the direct website.
Try it yourself. Google ‘Thai spice’ (there’s a several thousand independent Thai restaurants by this name so it’s a good example). Scroll down past the door dash promoted adverts and such till you get a result for the actual nearest restaurant by this name. Usually under a ‘places’ section.
Click ‘order’. See that this is just a redirect for door dash, grubhub etc that add a markup to the restaurant direct ordering system.
In fact try to go to the actual website. Click the name of the restaurant in the places section after a google search. On mobile you now have a new google presented summary page with a prominent order online button which is again just a redirect to grubhub/doordash/etc. On a computer it’s slightly better. You can see a website button to order directly under the places section but it’s still second rated prominence compared to the prominence of the above services. On Mobile the pattern is dark as night.
Basically that’s the revenue source. It’s a link that’s overly prominent in google that ultimately simply orders via the restaurants website with a markup. It’s free money.
People will always have a reason to order online. Restaurants themselves bear the brunt of inflation more than anyone but essentially stealing a direct link to the restaurant, capturing all those online orders and added a markup is very easy and low risk money.
I challenge the premise of your question.
I don't think financially insecure people are buying food delivery. At least not nearly as often as you might think.
I could be wrong, though. I have read that studies have shown that the majority of people buying lottery tickets can't afford to be buying them.