Substrate

This tide of packages is unlikely to recede. ​ If the arrival of automated delivery robots could lower the effort to sell or return goods to the minimal amount it now takes to buy them, users might exchange products through a new kind of logistical network that would make the process of acquiring and trading physical objects as frictionless as that of downloading and deleting digital files. Users might trade products among themselves through new kinds of logistical networks — a kind of peer-to-peer sharing for physical objects. ​ Minor physical annoyances that might have once subtly discouraged excess spending — such as the burden of carrying multiple items through stores — have been replaced with an interface that feels the same regardless of the quantities you buy.