Centrifugal

Life is getting more fragmented.  And less accountable.

One of our consultants, as we’ve mentioned, is moving to a new apartment.  The experience has changed significantly since our last move, almost six years ago, which is a little surprising.  Houses haven’t changed all that much since then, nor has the basic technology: searches and such were and are done online.  It’s more that the organization of things has evolved.

Simply to apply required almost two hours of filling in forms.  The number of details called for has increased; just digging up information took up much of that time.  And they were all sent to a third-party company/organization whose task is to vet prospective tenants.  It’s an entity none of us had ever heard of.  The lease was signed with a realty company, which does not own the property but only manages it for the landlord.  (We note that, while the vetting company knows all about our consultant, we don’t even know the landlord’s name.)  Rent will be paid to the realty company, but through a third-party online service that extracts a fee for this convenience.  Property maintenance is outsourced to contract plumbers, electricians, etc., and the contractor who takes care of the smoke alarms is not the one for the light switches.  The apartment is part of a complex which is run, in some ways, by the Owners’ Association.  When he went to set up an account to pay the electric bill he was (perforce) sent to a company, neither the electric company nor anything to do with the apartment complex, which specialized in switching utilities from one home to another (for a small fee, plus a large amount of advertising).  Early on it became clear that “third-party” is a misnomer for all these separate entities; we’re up to six or seven that are not the landlord (whoever he/she is) and the tenant.

This fragmentation of tasks is not confined to new apartments.  The cybersecurity on your computers is given over to, say, McAfee or Norton or Proton or whatever.  Retailers almost never take cash for merchandise; they work through some smartphone payment application, or (if particularly ancient in outlook) using a credit card, which itself will operate through a service.  Road tolls are automatically charged, and we’re pretty certain that whoever handles it, it’s not the state highway commission.  Examples could be multiplied, especially by people who are more inclined to use recent technology and conveniences than we are.

No doubt specialization is a good thing in general.  It makes sense, in an increasingly complicated world, for someone to carry out a task who actually knows how to do it.  And to make money at it, we notice.  It’s an economic trade-off: take the time to learn how to do it, and to do it yourself, or pay someone else for the job.

But now we’re not often given the choice.  Personal details are now out there, far from our knowledge much less control.  And if something doesn’t work, whom do you call?