Cakedaddy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 5:39 pm
It's pretty obvious!
But it's really not.
Retail:
Batch of X leaves foreign country via freighter for U.S.
Once in U.S. it boards a truck or train then truck.
Truck gets offloaded at store.
Customers come to store, try stuff on, then purchase an item or don't. Maybe they take it home and return it later.
If there are returns the store needs to process, they ship a bunch of stuff back to the manufacturer at one time.
Online:
Lots more purchases being made that otherwise wouldn't get made because people now have a mall in their face 24/7. So more products are needed, which means more plants running longer hours and more materials being used. Additionally, new products are constantly in demand and being made to "keep up with the Joneses".
One X leaves foreign country via freighter once it's ordered. Instead of leaving as part of a large batch, it's just being shipped one at a time using far more packaging materials.
Once in U.S. it boards a truck that takes it to a distribution hub.
There it either gets on another truck to be taken across the U.S. or a plane depending on terms of shipping.
The plane arrives at an airport where another truck is waiting for it to take it to another distribution hub. Or the truck delivers it there if no plane was needed.
Then a delivery truck will take it to a house, but won't put it aside to be delivered with other items ordered by that same house. Nope they'll just bring it whenever. Multiple trucks are going through there all day and it'll be on one of them.
Person gets the item ripping apart the box, but they hate it. Now they need to order a new box to ship it back (start over at step one) or drive to post office or carrier office to ship it back. So reverse this whole process and do it again for each individual item they order and return.
And again, a replicator makes this all moot. Also again, this was just one point in the whole "Let's make malls great again" argument. The social aspect is indisputable.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”