Comment by hattmall

Where in Europe do you find large amounts of small stores? (and for real, not fake). Or is your point that Europe has a different supermarket chain per country? Malls have the same stores across countries ... but they differ, somewhat, if you move from one country to the next. And they're fake. Every company has 3-4 store brands these days so malls have 4-5 stores that look different, but aren't.

So ... what a difference that makes?

(I mean, I get that it does make a difference. Carrefour clearly takes some pride in their chocolate selection and aldi ... well it's an insult to any product to be sold at aldi. But culture in shopping in the EU? Where do you find that?)

Don't act as if the cities in Europe look any different. I don't know what a "subscribe n save is" but I can find a Western Union, gambling hall and vape shop on every street corner.

You are seeing the effect for the cause. Humans (life in general) are effort minimizer machines, it doesn’t mean that maximum optimization is the ideal environment for a human to thrive.

Any caveman would have loved to have to choose between favourite junk food franchises instead of risking his life chasing woolly mammoths not to starve.

When housing, healthcare, work, social life all feel unstable, the predictable option starts looking less like boring conformity and more like one less decision that can go wrong

It's more a side effect of decision fatigue. Millennials are at a stage of life where they face a very high cognitive burden. They're not thinking deeply about it. which is great for advertisers.

I don't think that's a millennial thing. If you think back to the whole 'hipster' era, yes peer approval was a big part of it but so was local/artisan/unique stuff. Franchises were the things that were completely avoided. That predictability is much more of a modern requirement.

Perhaps but I also think this is just personal preferences across age groups.

For instance contrarians who avoid those attributes

Not sure it's a millenial thing, but yes

And to be honest choice fatigue also plays a part.

(Also millenials seem to sell some places as "gritty and authentic" when in reality a lot of them just suck)

I'm all for trying new things, but in the end you realize that a lot of those are just not for you and you go for the bland and tested thing

The world is becoming such that anywhere is like everywhere and everywhere is like anywhere.

At least major western cities are turning into the same-same but different tourists.

> a little further from there a McDonald's

in my experience there's like 3 of them on every one of these big streets, puzzling how many McD's exist.

>I don't think I'm alone?

Alone or not, you're hardly representative. They are huge corporate behemoths because 100s of millions go there.

And if you personally do avoid those, you likely still don't avoid 50 others like them. Like, you don't go to those, but shop at Amazon. Or ride Uber. etc

I lived in Glasgow for 20-odd years, where you can get food from any region of any country in the world made by people from that region of that country, right there, fresh, right in front of you.

I've also eaten Taco Bell.

You're not missing much. It is much as you'd expect, a stepped-on Americanised parody of Mexican food. Even in the small north-eastern city of 150,000 people I live near now there are at least three places better than it for Mexican food.

Starbucks is absolutely rank. I suspect all the syrups and shit people pump in is just there because they a) don't actually like coffee and want some sugary milkshake, and b) don't know what coffee tastes like so are okay with the stale over-roasted to the point of just being burnt lukewarm rubbish that Starbucks sells.

The rest of those don't really exist in the UK (yet!). I don't know if "Generic Brewery" is a real place or just a term for "oh hey you have to check <this place>" out, but if it's the latter then that would be Brewdog. Okay but not great beer, horrible horrible people.

I used to work at a small workshop in the south side of Glasgow where I'd go out and get a curry for lunch most days. The building looked semi-derelict but the shop itself was clean enough. Stainless counter, stainless kitchen units behind where two big Pakistani guys and their tiny grandmother who *everyone* deferred to cooked up curry. Cracked lino, scuffed formica tables.

You went in, you bought curry and a can of Coke. What kind of curry? Whatever they'd made that day. There was one, or maybe two if they also had a veg-only one on. It was whatever Naniamma had told them to make that day. Your menu choice was buy the curry or don't. Doesn't matter either way. Four quid please, want a fork?

It was always superb, and 20 years later I can still taste it just thinking about it. This is the kind of place you could eat.

I used to work near a food market where there were dozens of independent good stalls that were setup to serve working people lunches. The food was still fast, but a lot healthier, and you could go to one place and have a wide choice of options.

There is a formulation, a sugar/fat/salt ratio that the majority of people will find satisfying. Fast food tends to optimise this way. It's why, for example McDonalds burger buns are quite sweet.

But I don't know whether dopamine is the pathway responsible.

There’s a lot of possibility in between hunting and eating fast food. Buy some healthy food at the grocery store and pack a lunch to bring with you.

Also I'm not sure either is "bad for society" in the way that's implied.

Rentable scooters/bikes being dumped everywhere by idiots is an issue, but parked in city approved places they're a boon.

They can make transit incredibly more useful for thousands of people in slightly less dense places.

The nearest subway to me is 2km away. It's much nicer to be able to rent a scooter for 5min than having to take it with me for the whole ride, or have it locked to a pole with 100s others.

As for Waymo I dunno if a vehicle the size of a car just driverless is the answer to mobility issues, but anything that reduces the number of moving and parked cars in cities is a win in my book.