As we are tracked and fed information on our wants and needs from online tools, services and apps, our consumption will only get more streamlined, efficient and, most likely, mindless.

It's "a future of frictionless, continuous shopping," wrote Evgeny Morozov in The Times. "A world where we no longer need to search for anything, since we ourselves are perpetually monitored, with the relevant product or information sent to us based on perceived need."

During the holiday season, same-day shipping became the must-have promotion. Retailers like Walmart and small e-commerce sites like Shoptiques took a risk on this often complicated and money-losing service, The Times reported. "People have become accustomed to this idea of instant gratification, where you just type something on your phone and the next thing you know, you have what you need," Johnny Brackett of TaskRabbit, which offers personal assistant services, told The Times. Amazon has hinted that it will expand same-day shipping, and Google recently introduced Shopping Express, its own same-day delivery service.

Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, has said he wants to give us a "cybernetic friend" that could satisfy our desires by monitoring our conversations, e-mails and reading habits, then provide us with answers we didn't even know we needed. This "friend" "will turn us into anxious information machines," wrote Mr. Morozoz. We'll be endlessly consuming recommendations and scanning for the best deals without a thought.

It takes a lot of effort to keep up with retailers' constantly changing Internet prices, but a new group of tools is helping shoppers outwit stores, according to The Times. These tools automatically scan the Web for changes and alert customers when there's a price drop. Hukkster, introduced last year, asks shoppers to install a "hukk it" button on their browsers. When the shopper sees an item she likes, she clicks the button, chooses the size and discount, and tells Hukkster to alert her via e-mail when the price drops. Digital Folio charts the 30-day price history of electronics at several retailers. Shoppers then use Digital Folio as a live-comparison sidebar in the browser instead of going to different Web sites to check on prices. "You get the alert and you get in on the feeding frenzy," Patrick Carter, president of Digital Folio, told The Times.

And consumption, in its literal sense, is going the way of instant fulfillment as well. Plated, a new e-commerce business, along with services like Blue Apron, Chefday! and HelloFresh, will buy, measure, cut, chill, box and ship every ingredient for a meal to your door. No more pondering what's for dinner; all the customer has to do is choose recipes online. "There's not enough time in modern lives to recipe-select or grocery-shop," Nick Taranto of Plated told The Times. The meals cost $7 to $17 a serving.

Dinner kits have been successful in other countries. The first service, Middagsfried, started in Sweden in 2007 and spread in Europe. HelloFresh, owned by the German e-commerce giant Rocket Internet, delivers more than 10,000 boxes a week in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Australia, according to The Times.

"Food is one of the last pieces of daily life that is still analog," Josh Hix of Plated, told The Times. "We want to bring it into the digital space."

Anita Patil

The New York Times

(China Daily 03/31/2013 page9)