This is a good point. For example, I hate going to the grocery store. Buying good food to cook for a night is fun, but the general grocery shopping is a horrible experience. A combination of Amazon Subscribe and Save, Pantry, and services like Blue Apron mean I rarely go to the store. And things like subscribe and save mean I never have to think about when I'm out of toilet paper, it just shows up on a schedule which I have figured out now.
I peapodded for a couple years when my kids were very small and ultra-high labor, but I found the ability to micromanage my delivery made me spend about as much time on their website as I used to spend shopping (omg hold on while I google ten pages about how many oz of fresh blueberries I need to buy to make exactly 1/2 crushed cup whereas at the store I'd rely on my finely honed nearly instant engineering estimation ability). So if my daughter needs a box of raisins for snack time at school and there's 6 days until delivery and 2 are a weekend and there's 8 on the shelf and the next delivery is the 22nd then I need to buy how many packs of raisins? Whereas in the store I'd just buy one week sized pack per week until there's a backlog and then skip a week which is a much simpler algorithm.
Also I like hiking but lets get real sometimes the weather sux or its dark out or the air is clouded with bugs... and the supermarket is well lit, flat, hvac, bug free, sometimes I just need to put a couple thousand steps on the ole step counter...
I am also an amazon S+S user like yourself and a HUGE gripe I have is UPC churn. So I subscribe to three gigantic mouthwash bottles delivered every six months and like clockwork each time that rolls around the UPC has been cancelled/discontinued and I need to shop a fresh for something inflation adjusted to be 1.5 oz smaller for their profit or whatever. I would like to S+S to a more generic product/service like ship me qty three of two month sized (enormous) mouthwash bottles twice a year of minty fluoride freshness and I don't care the exact brand or the exact size to the mL.
Good point on the Amazon S+S. I have had that happen a few times and it's annoying. I wish more products were Amazon Basics. Those rarely change. We get basics baby wipes for our dogs (don't ask), and I'm pretty sure they have never changed since I set it up almost a year ago.
The labor part is also a good point. I used to order groceries online and pick them up and found it easier to just go to the store. Only when I got S+S setup, and started using services like Blue Apron was I finally out of the labor of managing a delivery. I still go to the store every week or so, but it's to grab fruit, milk, and soda. I'm in and out in just a few minutes depending on when I go.
It seems counter-intuitive, but I massively cut down on my grocery store time by going every day. Pop in after work every day, grab 3-5 items, hit the self-checkout and out. Takes about 5 minutes. If I forget something, no big deal, I'll be there tomorrow.
Whereas before you'd spend time thinking about the rest of the week to make a list, dash around the kitchen to check the essentials, drive to the store, spend > 30 minutes in the store getting everything, drive back, ... Probably 1.5-2 hours total.
