Welcome to the new excruciating world of waiting for everything – By Rob Walker (Fortune) / Oct 22 2021
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Ben Dreyfuss needed a comforter. And the actor and writer (and son of Oscar-winner Richard), who had recently moved to Sun Valley, Idaho, expected to get a satisfactory one at a good price on the same timetable that we’ve all become used to receiving consumer goods: right away.
It didn’t work out. In what became a lengthy Twitter thread, he raged that he couldn’t find an affordable comforter locally, and no online options could deliver quickly enough. “You want something on Amazon?” he groused. “Congrats, it will be here in a week.” His only option, Dreyfuss claimed, was to make a 150-mile roundtrip to the nearest Bed Bath & Beyond—“a societal failure” sparked by a stressed supply chain and 15 years of e-commerce wiping out local business.
Dreyfuss was promptly roasted—it didn’t help that he also framed his beef as a function of “small town Idaho” life; Sun Valley’s posh ski resorts don’t exactly typify rural Middle America. But let’s face it: Many of us have likely felt a similar frustration in recent weeks. The supply chain really is stressed, and that is part of what is causing consumers to do something that reverses decades of determined and sophisticated efforts by big business and technology. It is forcing us to wait. Six months for a refrigerator, nine months for a couch; some gamers are still having trouble getting hold of a PS5, which came out nearly a year ago.
CONTINUE > https://fortune.com/2021/10/22/supply-chain-waiting-for-everything-shortages-shipping-delays/
