What an absolutely beautiful, thoughtful and thoughtful provoking essay. I, like many people, use apps with delivery services and I have also worked some better paying jobs and low paying jobs too. Since that has been my experience, I am very aware of the importance of tipping well, being polite, saying thank you and/or leaving positive reviews. I am always struck by how humans take other humans for granted and how quickly humans will stop seeing someone else's humanity. I try to leave bottles of cold water or healthy packaged snacks for delivery workers whenever I can afford to. Yet the system of work...it is failing everyone and I am deeply troubled by the way we throw people away. Everyone deserves a good quality life with time to rest, laugh and just be. This is a genuine problem that needs thoughtful solutions. Thank you for this article.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful comment, and also for your kind words about the summer break. I really appreciate it 🙏
What you say about politeness, gratitude, water, snacks, and positive reviews matters. Those small gestures can remind both sides that a human being is there.
At the same time, I also think you are right that the system itself is failing people. Korea does not really have a tipping culture, and when some platforms tried to introduce tipping, there was strong pushback. One common response was: why should customers pay what employers or platforms should be responsible for?
I think both things can be true. We can treat workers with more care and humanity in the small moments we have, while also insisting that kindness from customers should never replace fair pay, protection, and dignity at work.
Dr Yoon, thank you for such a timely, insightful essay. (And I heartily support your summer break!). This made me think about the consumer's choices, whether or not to use the conveniences; versus the workers choices. A friend of mine lives in an area where there are few employment choices and they work a delivery job because it's better than no job. They shoulder the bills for the blown tires and car maintenance. A consumer can choose to avoid deliveries. A worker doesn't always have a choice.
Thank you so much for this, Margaret. And please call me Jiwon 🤗
Your friend’s situation captures the problem so clearly. A consumer may be able to choose whether to use delivery or not, at least some of the time. But for the worker, the “choice” can be much narrower: this job, with all its costs and risks, or no job at all.
That is why I keep coming back to the limits of consumer guilt. Individual choices matter, of course, and I do think we can try to be more conscious. But the deeper question is structural: why are so many people pushed into work where they carry the costs of the vehicle, the repairs, the waiting, the risk, and the uncertainty?
Still, I don’t want to end in despair. I think naming that difference between consumer choice and worker choice is already important. It helps us see where the real responsibility should be placed, and what kinds of protections we should be asking for.
Yes, I agree, it lies with the systemic/structural issues. It leads me to think about the importance of worker unionization in terms of the collective bargaining for those workers caught in the gears of the system.
Thank you for this detailed and compelling article, written with such diligence and expertise. To me, it really looks like a glimpse into the future. Personally, I try to avoid delivery services whenever possible because I consciously want to support bookstores, other local shops, and restaurants. Yet, I realize that this trend is bound to take hold here and in smaller towns as well. The way workers and the work itself are becoming invisible—and the fact that the struggle not only for wages but also for time is intensifying while hard-won union gains are being eroded—paints a picture that borders on dystopia. And the question you pose at the end of your article is one I ask myself time and again:
"A society should be able to distinguish between convenience that supports life and convenience that consumes another person's life."
Technological progress over the last few decades has enabled a massive increase in productivity. Yet, our working lives are becoming increasingly compressed. People have less and less control over their own lives. Only a small segment of our society benefits from this progress and is able to shape their lives according to their own wishes. I fear that we are becoming increasingly powerless in the face of this issue.
Thank you for your valuable work, and I wish you a pleasant summer break.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and generous response, Gerd. I really appreciate the care with which you read the piece 🙏
And honestly, I think what you describe may be more powerful than writing about the problem: choosing, even when it is less convenient, to support local bookstores, shops, restaurants, and other small businesses. I try to do that too, especially when I’m at bookstores or farmers markets. If I am already there, I want to buy what I need there and help keep those places alive.
But I also know how difficult it is to live completely outside these systems. When life gets urgent, tired, parental, or simply too full, I still end up using delivery sometimes. That is why I don’t want to turn this into a simple question of individual virtue. Most of us are trying to make ethical choices inside systems that are designed to make the easier choice almost irresistible.
Your point about productivity is exactly the contradiction that troubles me too. Technology was supposed to give us more freedom, more time, more room to live. Yet for many workers, it seems to compress life even more tightly.
Thank you again for reading with such depth, and for your kind summer wishes.
Thank you for your explanatory response. I fully agree with you. We cannot live outside this system while trying to cling to the old world. After all, even deep within the middle class of our societies, people are affected by the intensification of life and work; they are compelled—even against their own wishes—to utilize this new form of the division of labor in order to gain some freedom regarding time and money. You described this very clearly in your essay. We are unable to get to the root of the problem. Consequently, more and more people will live in precarious conditions, and demographic trends will accelerate, creating further difficulties.
Yes, I agree, Gerd. That is exactly the painful tension: many people are not freely choosing these systems so much as being pushed into them by the compression of time, work, and life.
I don’t know if we can get to the root of it easily, but I still think naming it matters. Seeing the structure matters. And perhaps small choices, public conversations, stronger protections, and a refusal to let workers disappear completely from view are all part of where hope begins.
Thank you again for thinking through this with me so carefully.
Thank you so much, Gerd. I hope many people read it too 😅 I’ll spend the summer break thinking a little more strategically about how to help these essays reach more readers.
And truly, thank you for always reading, commenting, and encouraging me with such care. It means more than you know 🙏
Oh, one more thing. I am so pleased that you are resting for a few weeks. You deserve it. Good job taking care of you first!
What an absolutely beautiful, thoughtful and thoughtful provoking essay. I, like many people, use apps with delivery services and I have also worked some better paying jobs and low paying jobs too. Since that has been my experience, I am very aware of the importance of tipping well, being polite, saying thank you and/or leaving positive reviews. I am always struck by how humans take other humans for granted and how quickly humans will stop seeing someone else's humanity. I try to leave bottles of cold water or healthy packaged snacks for delivery workers whenever I can afford to. Yet the system of work...it is failing everyone and I am deeply troubled by the way we throw people away. Everyone deserves a good quality life with time to rest, laugh and just be. This is a genuine problem that needs thoughtful solutions. Thank you for this article.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful comment, and also for your kind words about the summer break. I really appreciate it 🙏
What you say about politeness, gratitude, water, snacks, and positive reviews matters. Those small gestures can remind both sides that a human being is there.
At the same time, I also think you are right that the system itself is failing people. Korea does not really have a tipping culture, and when some platforms tried to introduce tipping, there was strong pushback. One common response was: why should customers pay what employers or platforms should be responsible for?
I think both things can be true. We can treat workers with more care and humanity in the small moments we have, while also insisting that kindness from customers should never replace fair pay, protection, and dignity at work.
Thank you again for reading so carefully.
Dr Yoon, thank you for such a timely, insightful essay. (And I heartily support your summer break!). This made me think about the consumer's choices, whether or not to use the conveniences; versus the workers choices. A friend of mine lives in an area where there are few employment choices and they work a delivery job because it's better than no job. They shoulder the bills for the blown tires and car maintenance. A consumer can choose to avoid deliveries. A worker doesn't always have a choice.
Thank you so much for this, Margaret. And please call me Jiwon 🤗
Your friend’s situation captures the problem so clearly. A consumer may be able to choose whether to use delivery or not, at least some of the time. But for the worker, the “choice” can be much narrower: this job, with all its costs and risks, or no job at all.
That is why I keep coming back to the limits of consumer guilt. Individual choices matter, of course, and I do think we can try to be more conscious. But the deeper question is structural: why are so many people pushed into work where they carry the costs of the vehicle, the repairs, the waiting, the risk, and the uncertainty?
Still, I don’t want to end in despair. I think naming that difference between consumer choice and worker choice is already important. It helps us see where the real responsibility should be placed, and what kinds of protections we should be asking for.
Yes, I agree, it lies with the systemic/structural issues. It leads me to think about the importance of worker unionization in terms of the collective bargaining for those workers caught in the gears of the system.
Thank you for this detailed and compelling article, written with such diligence and expertise. To me, it really looks like a glimpse into the future. Personally, I try to avoid delivery services whenever possible because I consciously want to support bookstores, other local shops, and restaurants. Yet, I realize that this trend is bound to take hold here and in smaller towns as well. The way workers and the work itself are becoming invisible—and the fact that the struggle not only for wages but also for time is intensifying while hard-won union gains are being eroded—paints a picture that borders on dystopia. And the question you pose at the end of your article is one I ask myself time and again:
"A society should be able to distinguish between convenience that supports life and convenience that consumes another person's life."
Technological progress over the last few decades has enabled a massive increase in productivity. Yet, our working lives are becoming increasingly compressed. People have less and less control over their own lives. Only a small segment of our society benefits from this progress and is able to shape their lives according to their own wishes. I fear that we are becoming increasingly powerless in the face of this issue.
Thank you for your valuable work, and I wish you a pleasant summer break.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and generous response, Gerd. I really appreciate the care with which you read the piece 🙏
And honestly, I think what you describe may be more powerful than writing about the problem: choosing, even when it is less convenient, to support local bookstores, shops, restaurants, and other small businesses. I try to do that too, especially when I’m at bookstores or farmers markets. If I am already there, I want to buy what I need there and help keep those places alive.
But I also know how difficult it is to live completely outside these systems. When life gets urgent, tired, parental, or simply too full, I still end up using delivery sometimes. That is why I don’t want to turn this into a simple question of individual virtue. Most of us are trying to make ethical choices inside systems that are designed to make the easier choice almost irresistible.
Your point about productivity is exactly the contradiction that troubles me too. Technology was supposed to give us more freedom, more time, more room to live. Yet for many workers, it seems to compress life even more tightly.
Thank you again for reading with such depth, and for your kind summer wishes.
Thank you for your explanatory response. I fully agree with you. We cannot live outside this system while trying to cling to the old world. After all, even deep within the middle class of our societies, people are affected by the intensification of life and work; they are compelled—even against their own wishes—to utilize this new form of the division of labor in order to gain some freedom regarding time and money. You described this very clearly in your essay. We are unable to get to the root of the problem. Consequently, more and more people will live in precarious conditions, and demographic trends will accelerate, creating further difficulties.
Yes, I agree, Gerd. That is exactly the painful tension: many people are not freely choosing these systems so much as being pushed into them by the compression of time, work, and life.
I don’t know if we can get to the root of it easily, but I still think naming it matters. Seeing the structure matters. And perhaps small choices, public conversations, stronger protections, and a refusal to let workers disappear completely from view are all part of where hope begins.
Thank you again for thinking through this with me so carefully.
I agree , Jiwon. Naming it matters and analysing the structure matters. Your research and work matters. Thank you.
I hope many read and understand and discuss what you write. 🙏👍
Thank you so much, Gerd. I hope many people read it too 😅 I’ll spend the summer break thinking a little more strategically about how to help these essays reach more readers.
And truly, thank you for always reading, commenting, and encouraging me with such care. It means more than you know 🙏