Convenience over Quality?

I think I've touched on this before, but "The Good Enough Revolution" caused me to re-reflect on this issue in our society today. We are a living in a world of now. Last time I talked about it I called it instant gratification, and that isn't far off from what is being described in this article. The article is discussing how our world accepts things as "good enough" instead of actually striving to produce the best quality products. I would have to agree with this.

"Don't believe the myth of quality," Capps says. He's right. We've started accepting lower quality of everything as a trade off for convenience. He gives a number of examples (Kindle versus paper, MP3s versus analog music, etc.), but I can also think of quite a few examples of this from personal experience. There have been more than a handful of times when I've needed something, let's say an iPhone charger. Apple makes the only "verified" iPhone charger and the knock offs are generally way shiftier quality and break fairly quickly. They also cost way less. But they sell the knock offs on Amazon. So I have purchased the knock offs simply because I can get them right away rather than waiting for Apple to process an order for a higher quality product, I've chosen convenience over quality time and time again.

An interesting counter argument to this, however, is the food industry. It is my observation (and experience) that while almost every other area of our life follows the "convenience over quality" mantra, the millennial generation has almost certainly adopted the opposite mantra when it comes to our eating habits. Whereas the generation just above us grew up with staples like Mcdonald's, Taco Bell, and KFC at the dinner table or in the lunchbox, our generation has demanded a higher standard and a new breed of "fast food has emerged because of it. This new breed-- the Chipotle type restaurant, which fuses the order-at-the-counter convenience with the farm-to-table quality that millennials desire-- is popping up all over the country, and is beginning to affect the business of the old conglomerates of fast food. Millennials demand a different taste and style of food than traditional, low-quality, convenient fast food chains can offer.

                           
This Forbes article (where the chart was taken from) shows some interesting statistics about the fast food industry and this change over the past few years. http://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciaadamczyk/2014/07/09/millennials-prefer-quality-over-convenience-reveals-new-survey/#37058a4731fc

In conclusion, I think the "good enough" mindset is certainly a problem we need to address-- but do not think it can be regarded as universal.