The Cultural Convenience of Spending is Not Cute <3

While heading to the gym yesterday, to hit my classic, and rather uncomplicated set of biceps, triceps and back (I know, a heated debate for the gymbros), my friend noticed something peculiar after we passed the scanner. “Why would you waste one whole minute opening your gym app to scan your membership pass?”

“Huh?” Baffled is an appropriate word to use here I believe. An analytical discussion fit for the four oak-studded walls of policy-making rooms was taking place at the entrance of my pilates princess playground.

“Just add it to your Apple Pay. Takes a second!”. Oh! How foolish of me! It has been exactly 26 hours since this rendezvous took place. I have not added the pass to my Apple Pay yet. As someone who adores the art of justifying even the slightest of my decisions, may it be a pair of low-rise jeans, or opening a new bank account, I did not hold back when my friend questioned me about the oddity of me abstaining to add this barcode to my Apple Pay.

To be fair though, my justification wasn’t er… the best.

“I want to exercise my thumb more by taking that extra minute to open the app.” Well, not having a comment would have been a compelling call to take in that situation.

A lot has happened post this interaction. Exercising the mental gymnastics of what to have for dinner. Takeout? No, let’s save money. Should I pick out my outfit for work tomorrow? Something red! It’s the Lunar New Year. The world is a mess aaah. I saw a snowflake!

Despite the chaos unravelling in my mind, which is a routinely unscheduled Google calendar occurrence, one thought has remained since yesterday.

Have we become this lazy that we require a portable fairy godmother to appear with our cards, membership passes, and concert tickets at a mere double-click?

Hungry? *Double-click.*

Concert tickets? *Double-click.*

Impulse Sephora purchase because you had a bad Tuesday? *Double-click.*

As of 2022, Apple Pay holds 48% of the mobile wallet market in the U.S. That is a significant chunk, which was engineered with the motivation to remove the microscopic bridge between wanting something and buying it. The economics of the Apple Wallet feed over your momentary spendings, which is frankly, insane.

The excruciatingly lengthy process of fishing for your wallet inside the vast pandemonium of old receipts, loyalty cards from 2017, spare coins that have not seen daylight since the Trudeau administration, and, surprise! A lone tampon just free-floating like it pays rent there.

There was drama in that process.

You had to commit. You dug. You excavated. You unearthed artifacts. By the time you finally found your debit card, you’d emotionally processed the purchase. Sometimes you even decided against it halfway through the archaeological dig.

To be fair, this is quite genius. Bentham and his clan of utilitarians would love it.

We have replaced the intense wallet wilderness survival mission with a simple tap or double-click as our financial destiny. And that is where the cultural convenience of spending stops being cute <3

In the early days, at least from the conversations I have had with my folks, purchasing things meant something. There was an articulated thought process backing each purchase, to avoid issues of excess consumerism. There was theatre.

Now, the transaction is silent. Honestly, I understand the whole ‘efficiency’ ideology coupled with the cliché ‘time is money’ one-liner. But this cultural phenomenon is about how laziness has been rebranded as ‘contemporary efficacy,’ and it needs to be addressed more.

We have become allergic to inconvenience.

Opening an app? Too long.

Typing a password? Barbaric.

Walking to the ATM? Absolutely not.

The less energy something costs, the less mental resistance we apply. And mental resistance is what used to protect us from impulse. We’ve optimized away the friction that forced us to be intentional. There is psychology at play behind this economically fuelled act (sponsored by capitalism), and it needs our attention to some extent.

Coupled with our fascination with sweet treats and impulse purchases, laziness is more likely to take the win. A recent Bank of America survey found that 57% of Gen-Zs buy themselves a sweet-treat at least twice a week. However, laziness isn’t new. Humans are wired to prefer the easier route. What’s new is that entire financial infrastructures now exist to make sure laziness triumphs.

And that’s not cute!!!

That’s profitable.