New apps have replaced people in our "plug-and-play economy" [see photo].
Take any aspect of your local economy today and you will get to choose how, when, and whether you are willing to plug-and-play. The sale of your labour is done through a plug-and-play app [online offers of jobs, gigs, piece work, etc] that folds you neatly into a virtual network. The same thing applies to your inputs into local, national, or international affairs. The same things occurs when you invest, vote, send kids to school, place your parent's in aged care, need healthcare, etc.
Here is a simple example of what I mean. You get hungry while in lockdown at home - no worries. You order a meal via an app [a digital interface] through which you pay for the actual meal and a heap of additional charges even before your order is lodged with a cook; that is mega convenient right? Yeah it is cool... This is a new type of payments system [pay for food, delivery, interface fees, taxes, tips, etc all together via your app]. Your app dispatches a signal to a local cooking facility: in this kitchen your meal is prepared. You meal is packaged to travel to you as either a hot or a fresh offering. Once it is packed a delivery separate app is activated to organise the physical movement of your meal from that kitchen to you. Before too long you receive a message on your app declaring that your food is at the front door. You are ready to eat a great meal, right? Well maybe not.. I forgot to mention that your meal is not precisely as you ordered it: some things are missing [this happens]. The shine is off the meal now because your app does not enable you to get a refund or call up the missing food. Ha, ha, ha.... Loving it yet?
The plug-and-play economy is nothing like the one we left behind. It has no layers to it. It has no levers of control to it. For instance you can demand to speak to someone in control to say "what happened to the bread sticks and avocado dip I ordered and paid for with this meal?". You must suck it up. Just as you must "suck it up" when plug-and-play apps start to impact your life here, there, and everywhere - for example the cancel culture app. That one is a total hoot... There are apps "out there" that you are not signed up for but nonetheless can have a direct impacted on your life. I know you did not intend that when you sign on for apps like Wolt [food delivery] Uber [transport] In-house discounts [Lidl or Tesco app] etc however by doing that you did indirectly give your permission for the implementation of Vaccine passport apps, social credit score apps, digital ID apps, etc. You gave your tacit approval to the rapid development of all these draconian apps because you conformed to the norms of the plug-and-play economy. Banking, retail, travel, taxes, legal identity, etc are all working with other apps to tap into the mega data bases that record all your quirks, peccadillos, opinions, preference, etc.
Are you happy to be part of the plug-and-play economy?
As a minimalist I have very few apps so I find the plug-and-play economy an amusing sideshow to the world I inhabit. But most folk are caught up in this compliance web and the sad thing is that many do not know how the game is structured; they do not understand that this is a Wild West type of economy and there are few law men around. Ha, ha, ha.....
Richard.
The mind of a minimalist is developed on a unique sense of what call minimal-you which, in turn, is based on individual needs not collective wants. For instruction on how to establish your sense of you: go to minimal-you.com and hit the "become a minimalist" button in the banner heading. This will take you to a payment scheme for a 10 day programme that will teach you how to design, enforce, and live with mind filters: these help you to be the best person you can be.
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