September 6, 2026
I recently had some number of people mad at me on the internet for my annoyance at having to wait additional time at a restaurant, as the restaurant’s kitchen was kept busy by a deluge of DoorDash orders. Excepting my qualms with DoorDash’s explicit exploitation of undocumented workers with less robust legal protections (America has an addiction to cheap labor), I would like to make an argument against DoorDash grounded in the virtue of effort.
Many of the pro-DoorDash arguments are implicitly grounded in ease and efficiency, implying that its ease of use justifies its value as opposed to going outside; the issue with this is the reification of efficiency. We leave a limited amount of time such that thrift is warranted. This thrift is likely not being used for superior tasks than picking up one’s burrito. As much as an individual may claim that they use this additional time for chores and hobbies, it seems that the average person will simply fill this time with more social media, TV, and consumption time. We are not trading for better time, but more hedonic time. A response will be that these experiences are preferable to going outside, evidenced by the willingness to pay additional fees for it. This view presumes that one will do what is best for them rather than what is most pleasing. Pleasure is not the ultimate good. If you genuinely believe so, why not become addicted to painkillers? After all, people exhibit a clear preference for them.
Effort is a good in itself. Insofar as any action requires effort, we ought to direct it toward our goals as it is by which we achieve them. By minimizing the amount of effort we expend, we reduce our tolerance for producing it later, such that it becomes more difficult to enact our will. As this enactment is (to act is to be) a human trait, we lessen ourselves by doing so. (What does no action? A corpse). As I believe that living is the only material point of the time we have on earth, any rejection of it is a failure on the part of the non-actor.