Amidst the annual dusk of the yearly Indian wedding season, last week I found myself at a friend's Haldi ceremony at his home. The groom, nonchalantly hanging out in regular jeans and a tee, underdressed as he was, was pressured into changing into a fresh kurta so it could be ruined in the traditional turmeric paste. Giving in without protest, his thumb casually scrolled along the Blinkit app on his phone to order a new Manyawar outfit. Ten minutes later, a Blinkit delivery person, joined the guest list with a fresh ₹900 kurta in his apt for the occasion jolty yellow uniform. No panic, no drama - just our new Indian normal.

Remember when waiting was normal? When getting something delivered meant planning ahead, when "instant" still meant 30 minutes? Yes, I'm referring to history.

We're living in an exciting age where technology is reshaping our relationship with time and wants, often in ways that amaze and delight us.

Just the other day, India's 2025 Union budget announcement enabled more disposable income in the hands of the under-12-LPA crowd. And it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine this "new normal" is about to accelerate. The middle class, newly armed with extra cash, is ready to spend. And the convenience economy? It's ready to grow.

But here's where it gets interesting - in our exuberance about making, we might be overlooking something bigger. Could this speed become both a solution and a problem?

(By the way, you'd be mistaken to think this market is restricted to cheap labour nations. Between April 2024, when Pipedream Labs raised $13M and November the same year, when they deployed their first underground, autonomous, emissionless, affordable network; a town in Georgia, USA can source popcorn faster than you can say 'the Jetsons'.)

The Spark

I recently came across a short thought experiment where a fictional bar owner finds an unexpected solution to their weekend drunkards’ disruptive chaos. Instead of the usual hire some muscle and "cut them off" move, the experiment proposes exponential pricing - each drink after your third costs more than the last, with the markups going to charity.

And here’s why this idea is intriguing. Yes, it deters the crazy hooliganist types from choosing that bar or staying too long (and for the bar’s reputation is that such a bad thing?). But more importantly, it found a way to make the true cost of excess visible - and gave it meaning.

It’s an interesting proposition when thinking about our convenience economy. Unlike drinking’s more immediate to +1 day consequences for the consumer (unless you decided to really, really mess up on your night out), a convenience economy has more hidden negative externalities that would benefit from some exposition.

Imagine if we could see all its costs - not to stop it, but to make it work better for everyone involved?

The Arc: Seeing the Full Picture

The Hidden Web

Every 10-minute delivery is part of a larger web. While the environmental impact of last-mile delivery may be said to be addressed through the use of electric bikes and route optimization algorithms with the option to ‘go-green-your-ride-and-save-₹5-on-your-next-ride’ by combining orders, there's a deeper story here.

All riders registered with convenience apps like Ola, Uber, Zomato, Swiggy, Blinkit, etc. are considered unorganised labour. This means their job security and wages are always in question. Behind every instant gratification, some individuals are navigating increasingly congested cities, working longer hours to make enough cash.

An assumption on 26 days of labour in a month and 4 members per urban household for a wage worker, the gap between a monthly wage and monthly cost of living has widened from ₹5000 rupee deficit in 2014 to >₹9000 rupees in 2024 (Source, Cost of Living data: NSSO Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2024)

I once personally encountered a 16-year-old delivery boy at my doorstep, completely out of it, too weak to make his next order. Feeding him some water, a peanut butter jelly sandwich and an apple felt necessary out of genuine medical concern. As he sat and ate, he spoke about how challenging it’s been to make a day’s wage, and every other break he finds has to be spent recording a reel to become a content creator.

It might not take an X thread at this point to see that all trends, both on VC funding and last-mile logistics enablement businesses point toward a growing trend towards hyper-commerce. If it would, well, here you go.

Safe to assume, that our urban centres are undergoing a rapid transformation into pressure cookers of convenience - hypercommerce, more vehicles, more consumption, and more strain on infrastructure.

Our sparky bar owner friend above might have an idea about responsibility re-distribution here.

The Resource Spiral

The convenience economy isn't just about delivery. It's reshaping how we use resources, how we build cities, and how we impact our environment.

More than 50% of India now lives in densely concentrated urban centres. That’s less than 4% of India’s landmass. If that level of resource strain does not tell us the downward spiral we’re on, I don’t know what does. Oh wait, here’s a small snippet from an insanely telling infographic that might. Some students at the National Institute of Design created it and the full graphic is honestly worth checking out.

When a major fast fashion clothing brand launched its clothing recycling program, it seemed like a perfect post-consumer waste recycling solution - convenience meeting consciousness. Until a sting operation revealed mountains of collected clothes in landfills halfway across the earth. While perhaps well-intentioned, this case highlights the importance of robust systems to deliver on sustainability goals.

Where’s a sparky bar owner friend when you need them?

A Future for Fast?

Here's where it gets interesting. What if we could make our convenience economy work better for everyone involved? It's already starting to happen:

• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is making companies rethink entire supply chains with added ownership of post-consumer waste

• Digital product passports (DPPs) are now tracking environmental impact from creation to disposal

• International trade regulations are beginning to demand that exported goods report their environmental and social footprints as measurement is the first step towards reduction.

Nate Hagens, a notable author and speaker on future society, and the Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF) talks about a relatively near term approaching phenomenon he calls ‘the Great Simplification’ where our increasingly complex and arguably dysfunctional systems will eventually collapse into a more synergistic and simplified society and will find more tune with the rest of the planet.

A key concept of note that emerges is about transparency of the ‘true cost’ of any raw material or product. True cost is not just the cost of its extraction, but also the cost of production, the cost of removal, and the cost of disposal, as an overall price the product carries.

Remember that bar with the exponential pricing? They didn't vilify or ban drinking - they created a system where being mindful made more sense. I’d say that's an inspiring model for our convenience economy.

The solution isn't to fight quick commerce - it's to make it smarter. To build systems where:

• Impact is visible and valued

• Better choices make business sense

• Technology serves well-being, not just speed

• Communities thrive alongside commerce

We're all part of this system - consumers, businesses, delivery partners, regulators. And we have the opportunity to make it work better.

It is about being truth-seeking, I wrote more about it here.

It is about an intention economy, more here.

It is about finding and aligning incentives.

There’s more coming. We’re getting to our meatier themes. Until then.

Stay curious. Stay intentional.