Jake: Amazon’s newest same-day delivery item is absurd, but also kind of amazing

Here’s a headline that caught my eye this morning: Amazon is now offering same-day delivery on Ozempic. Ozempic!

This raises an immediate question: What does somebody’s life look like that they’re hitting the same-day delivery button on a weight-loss drug? This couldn’t wait two days? Couldn’t you see this coming far enough in advance to swing by the pharmacy?

But here’s where I’m at on this. My instinct to mock it says more about the moment we’re living in than the person placing the order.

We have it obscenely good right now

Growing up, the arrival of a package at our house was an event. Once a year at Christmas, my grandparents would send a box from California — not too big, because shipping was a fortune — and we would wait for it with genuine, breathless anticipation. The UPS guy in his brown jumpsuit was basically Santa’s deputy. We’d dig through packing peanuts like we were excavating buried treasure. The whole thing was magic.

What I didn’t understand as a kid was the sheer logistical effort behind that one box. Someone had to drive to a physical shipping location, stand in line, weigh the package, and pay through the nose for it. If you wanted it to arrive in under three weeks, you paid what felt like a second mortgage for first-class shipping.

Today, my kids don’t even get up from the couch when the Ring doorbell chimes. They hear the footsteps, the clunk on the porch, and they let it sit there — sometimes for two days. There’s no mystery. It’s probably paper towels.

What was once extraordinary is now completely ordinary — and dramatically cheaper. That’s not a complaint. That’s progress, but it’s worth pausing on.

What used to take weeks now takes hours and we barely notice

We live in a moment when technology is as cheap as it’s ever been, and getting cheaper. You can have a prescription medication — one that would have sounded like science fiction 20 years ago — sitting on your doorstep by dinner. The only friction left in the entire shipping process is remembering to bring the box inside.

So yes, laugh at the same-day Ozempic. It’s a little absurd. But it’s also a pretty remarkable symbol of just how far we’ve come.

The box of Christmas presents still shows up on the doorstep. We’ve just forgotten to be amazed by it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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