The 1970s suggests that when gas stations start closing they may close a lot faster than people expect. Gas has a weird margin and is often something of a "loss leader" to convenience stores (or now full supermarkets). On the supply side it is capital-heavy and demand-driven in interesting ways that will respond to demand drops in terms of a "ratchet effect", in which many types of temporary shutdowns will result in permanent shutdowns that will be more expensive to restart than there should be investment interest.
Gas logistics is fascinating with how many possible places exist for disruption (in the negative sense more than the tech sense) to cause domino chains.
Things have the possibility to get "very interesting" in a unique shutdown spiral. I don't know how soon we'll see it, or if we'll see it, but if it happens I don't think it is "far" in the future, even as the 1970s starts to feel too far out of cultural memory to use as an allegory.
The 1970s suggests that when gas stations start closing they may close a lot faster than people expect. Gas has a weird margin and is often something of a "loss leader" to convenience stores (or now full supermarkets). On the supply side it is capital-heavy and demand-driven in interesting ways that will respond to demand drops in terms of a "ratchet effect", in which many types of temporary shutdowns will result in permanent shutdowns that will be more expensive to restart than there should be investment interest.
Gas logistics is fascinating with how many possible places exist for disruption (in the negative sense more than the tech sense) to cause domino chains.
Things have the possibility to get "very interesting" in a unique shutdown spiral. I don't know how soon we'll see it, or if we'll see it, but if it happens I don't think it is "far" in the future, even as the 1970s starts to feel too far out of cultural memory to use as an allegory.