COVID has changed a lot about the way we go through the world and navigate even simple, mundane tasks. No matter how someone feels about all the different things that have gotten wrapped up in the virus, things like masks, lockdowns, vaccines, its origins and so on, the fact is, the effects have been immense. Truth be told, the full effect of the shifts in the economy, distribution networks, and how and where we get our work done won’t be known, much less understood for years to come.
One thing we do know is that people’s habits have changed immensely in the last year. While at one time only a relative handful of people were doing curbside pickup or home delivery, now, almost everyone has done that at least once. Things that we never thought we would buy online are now in our cart and at our doorstep, before we even think about going to an actual store for them.
That means all the information that companies had on us as a society pre-COVID has virtually no descriptive power for what we are doi