Further to this posting here, here is Instapundit on the same subject:
I DON’T KNOW WHETHER Amazon is going to replace brick-and-mortar merchants, but I notice that I’m buying more and more stuff from them. And in a related development, my wife heard from a real-estate person that small commercial-office space is in a glut because a lot of people are running their businesses out of their home, given the ease of doing so that comes from the combination of Internet, cellphones, and UPS. I suspect that there’s more of this kind of thing going on under the radar.
The point about UPS is interesting, I think.
There are lots of good reasons why working at home all round the clock is difficult. Add up all these reasons and you have the answer to the question: Why do “offices” exist? But there is especially potent reason, at any rate here in Britain with its particular sort of postal system, why working at home is easier, and that is that you are actually at home when the man from UPS (or whoever) knocks on your door with a parcel that is too big and valuable looking to just leave lying around outside. The big advantage of old fashioned shopping over buying stuff over the Internet (and the basic reason why I still do so much old fashioned shopping), is that you can shop at a time of your own choosing. The shop is open around the clock, not you, and you can go there, and be sure of getting in whenever you want, subject only to their pre-announced opening hours. You don’t have to make a day of it. (They are the ones making a day of it.) But if someone is delivering a vital yet ungainly package, or for that matter delivering a machine or doing some vital one-off maintenance of a machine, chances are you do have to make a day of it, i.e. take a day off work. (In Britain, often, to go by the horror stories we all hear about plummers etc., you often find yourself taking several days off work.) Unless, of course, home is where you already work.
It is also a lot easier to guard your home all day long if you are there. Even in gun-controlled reasonable-force-forget-it Britain I believe that this is still true. I certainly feel that I am more likely to be burgled in my absence than in my presence, however little fuss the law allows me to make if I am present when burgled. Damn the law. If burgled, I will make a fuss. You (if you are a burglar) can damn well count on that. And if I can I’ll clobber you with something hard and sharp-edged, and then play as much politics as I can with any prosecutions that come my way. (Think Tony Martin as Samizdata regular!)
My point is: there are other reasons to work at home beside the mere misery of daily travelling. Being actively present at home, for long periods of time, has many advantages besides the horrors of commuting, and besides the fact that you might be home educating your (older – see comments on the previous posting) kids.
And this is not even to mention that, if you are an entrepreneur (which is what the Instapundit quote is about), using you home both to work in and to live in might be cheaper and more efficient than paying for a home and an office.
And now I will go and do a posting here about the educational vibes of combining home working with home educating.
Offices may still be necessary if establishing and maintaining a culture is considered necessary and if ‘impressing’ the clientele is considered necessary too.
But there certainly is a trend to having scattered ‘offices’ all tied together via technology. But it will be interesting to watch what pundits have to say about the ‘breakdown’ of teamwork and a sense of belonging. There have already seen a breakdown in interpersonal relationships from technologies relating to our free time and lives, I wonder what will happen when folks have no reason to interrelate at all, including traditional work. Individualism is my point of view, but I also recognize that (voluntary) associations are necessary, and completely insular worlds, made possible with technology, may have its downsides. But then again my co-workers can really get under my skin, so there may be an upside. Maybe the best of both worlds is to have an office and home office, and as long as the work is done to standard, it is up to the individual where they want to be on a given day. Makes handling personal appointments more flexible, and allows for seclusion for illnesses etc.
What you need is a Mail Boxes Etc., oops, UPS Store. You know, a private mailbox service. Let them wait around all day for your packages and then hold them securely to await your convenience.
Do they have these over there? If not, you should. They are most convenient for Internet shopping.
I don’t see a need to worry. Actually, a completely isolated environment is already quite possible.
Without leaving the house, you can do pretty much everything except grocery shopping. However, isolation has its drawbacks. Even with emoticons, electronic communication cannot express the complex processes of human thought, and it favors those who have mastered the written word, so people will be naturally driven toward social environments of some sort, or at least become better writers.
If there is one argument against On-line commerce, it is it takes a few days for the product to get to you. If I want something sooner, I’d get it at a store.
It is possible to specify UPS delivery to their local depot, hold for pickup, or to have a sign on the door informing them to do that if nobody is available to receive the package. The items I will be ordering soon, curio and relic firearms, require adult signiture, and I don’t plan to play tag with them.
Anyone who wants to steal my UPS packages is welcome to try. Mostly, it’s ammo and it weighs a TON. The UPS guy for our area looks like Mr. Universe — well, he does NOW.
Alex:
“pretty much everything except grocery shopping”
Hmm, someone doesn’t live within range of tesco.com.
Could it be we have one over on the Yanks here?
I just get all my Amazon orders and such sent to my work address. Lots of others do too – once there was a mast for a sailing boat sitting in the goods in department for a few days! No-one seemed to complain. I’d imagine most employers would rather deal with personal deliveries than have employees taking time off work.
Andrew, actually we Yanks have a couple of choices when it comes to home delivery of groceries, depending on location.
But remember, Britain is a teeny-tiny country with short travel distances (ergo, quick delivery) and a compacted population (making multiple calls per run more likely, and the whole thing more cost-efficient).
Anyway, we Yanks prefer to drive our gas-guzzling V-8 SUVs and trucks to the store so we can destroy the environment — haven’t you read the latest liberal talking points memo?
Working from home is also going to polarise the property market. Well-off home home workers will move pretty much where they like, creating hot spots of culture and creativity in attractive small towns and areas of beautiful countryside. Sprawling inter-war suburbs, unless blessed with unusual charm and spacious houses, will degenerate into slums. Don’t buy a house in Neasden, folks. Move to a city like Edinburgh or York or a small town like Ludlow – but unfortunately the market has already gone a bit mad in these places. Soon broadband will be everywhere and the process will intensify. I have been trying to persuade my wife of this but of course there is an inertia caused by the presence of friends, etc., and good schools for the children.
On the subject of buying things over the internet, when I heard about Amazon in about 1998 I immediately stopped going to bookshops. I have spent thousands of pounds with Amazon since. For some reason I never seemed to get on with bookshop assistants, who I found rather supercilious, despite the fact that I am rather bookish myself. Recommendations, reviews in the paper, and reviews in Amazon, are an adequate substitute for fossicking among the shelves.
Oh, and I have worked from home since 1982, with a few intervals of working in an office. Much easier since 1996, when I finally (rather late) got online.
That may be the case in Brit, Graham, but I don’t see that happening in the States.
The distances are too great. Cheaper satellite may make that possible, but there are two things everyone in home based business needs:
Fast, cheap Internet (Broadband or DSL)
Close airport
To get to some of the more attractive housing spots here you’d have to drive (at least) 4-6 hours to get to an airport. That’s not reasonable. Remember, there is no rail in the U.S. (outside of commuter rail in some Northeastern cities) — certainly nothing like the rail systems you have in Brit. If we’re going to get somewhere, and travel a long distance from the frontiers, we’re driving–and that means time, gas, stress, etc.
Home based businesses in the States have to be near a major city (or at least a minor one) with a good aiport and Broadband.