Convenience isn't bad because of some inherent value in toil or it rots your soul. Convenience is bad because it often comes at the cost of an exploited underclass. I don't care if someone wants to taxi their meal to their house instead of making it themselves or even driving to the restaurant themselves. I care that meal delivery apps underpay their workers (they don't even consider them their workers), provide no workplace protections, and prey on their desperation.
The desire for convenience is a morally neutral thing (no matter how many capitalists want their workers to see unproductivity or aversion to the "grind" as a moral failing). Companies that sell you only convenience by making it worse for yourself and for others are not.
I'm sorry but this is the exact thing I was talking about when I said "convenience does not rot your soul."
You talking to a person over the counter to order food at a restaurant is not an anymore meaningful interaction than talking to someone who delivered that food. Delivery and take-out have always existed. That option to pay more for that convenience has always existed. The major difference now is that most restaurants no longer employ people in-house to do delivery, because it's being done by contracted gig workers who get absolutely no benefits or protections. The major difference now are the working conditions.
I agree societal connections are good, but you just going outside to order food and the coming back is not meaningfullly participating in society. Removing deliveries or any sort of accesibility service (cafes not having wifi for example) will not force people to interact with strangers if they don't want to do that. Convenience facilitates people who already don't want to interact with others, but convenience isn't what's making people lonely! You cannot passively consume your way to community.
Most people aren't gonna talk or build relationships with folks in that restaurant. They're gonna eat and leave, and that's less "community building" than someone who ordered take-out so they can stay home to participate in an online book club or zoom their loved ones in another country. Do not romanticize past toils and lack of accessibility. Convenience and accessibility leads to people having more time to connect with each other, not less.
A thing to note here is that restaurants also underpay their workers, provide few workplace protections, and prey on their desperation. Restaurant workers are not the opposite of convenience-providers-being-exploited, they're part of that spectrum.
