A FEW WEEKS INTO YEAR TWO of the lockdown era, America is grappling with what an ethicist might call the Delivery Dilemma. When white-collar knowledge workers fled from the pandemic to toil from home, and shopping and dining out became potentially mortal hazards, business's response showed just how versatile and nimble it could be. Huge swaths of the economy pivoted to or doubled down on e-commerce. Sit-down restaurants converted to takeout. Big-box retailers hired thousands of shelf-pickers and box-fillers. Factories worldwide scrambled to add shifts to make the exercise bikes, jigsaw puzzles, and pet toys that we suddenly realized we needed so much more of. A global steel-and-sinew web of logistics infrastructure, overseen by ultraefficient algorithms, delivered whatever we wanted, cushioning the blow of a planetwide crisis.
展开▼
