Some months ago, I was having a discussion (more a debate) about the choice of cars in India, when compared to the US. The conversation was with someone who has been living in the US for close to 15 years now.
"India should allow more foreign cars to be sold in the country; consumers get more choice--like they do in the US."--he said. "And competition is always good."
"Yes, I have heard this before."--I thought. "Do you know which is the largest selling brand of cars in the US?" I asked.
"Um, no."
"Toyotas and Hondas."
"Hm."
"You do know what the Japanese carmakers did to the American car industry?"
"Hm. Yes. Sort of."

This conversation has been coming back to me when I see so many other things around me. Just this afternoon I had a conversation about how shopping websites have made life easier. Then there are those conversations about how Uber and Ola having made life easier. Not to speak of Whatsapp making life easier. Going by all these "innovations" that are "making life easier", all our lives should be a cake-walk by now, isn't it? We should be traipsing through it. But are we?

Convenience cannot be the only defining reason for doing anything. Especially if you consider yourself to be among those who are better read and more aware of how simple behaviour patterns can have huge collective effects.

Yes, shopping online is easier. But what happens to the hundreds of thousands of people employed in shops and the entire logistics industry that keeps shops running? And the online discounts that most shoppers run after will soon dry up. They have to. No business survives on discounts alone.
Uber and Ola flout the laws of every country they function in, find legal loopholes to enter new markets, and charge far higher than the regular fare (surge pricing) when they know you need a taxi during crunch times. And while I have waited for a BEST bus, boarded it and gone home, my colleague has been left standing on the pavement, waiting for Uber to tell her if any cab is coming her way. Hailing a taxi the old-fashioned way is not cool any longer. Staring at your phone app unendingly is.
And Whatsapp... Barring my mother, everyone I know has it and is confounded why I don't, specially when "it is free". (They are clearly not looking at their phone bills if they think Whatsapp is free, but that's another matter.) In the past couple of years, I have lost touch with almost all the friends I had because it is not convenient any longer to even email, let alone pick up the phone and call. Oh, and phone calls cost money. The horror of it!
And then, of course, there is the whole issue of what information apps mine from mobile phones, but, hell, who cares, right? Apps are convenient, and cool.

Are we even aware of what we are becoming and the lives we are leading if we are willing to sacrifice all else at the altar of convenience? I doubt. I wonder what we do with all the time and energy that we surely must be saving by all these convenient inventions.