MORE IMPORTANT THAN CONVENIENCE.

• Author: Farsad, Negin
• Position: Grocery stores delivery services

As a resident of New York City, I am inundated with ads for fifteen-minute grocery apps. These are services that provide, well, delivery of groceries to your door in fifteen minutes or less. A lot of apps, including JOKR, 1520, Gopuff, and Buyk, have thrown their hats into this ring. Even DoorDash has expanded its operations to join the fray.

For these businesses, the boom in e-commerce means an opportunity to branch out into grocery delivery. But of all the convenience-trolling that modern life has wrought--the same-day delivery and the endless array of services, from massages to blowouts, that can show up on your doorstep--this one seems the most deranged.

If you live in one of the world's big cities, as I do, your grocery store is already likely to be less than fifteen minutes away. Just GO TO THE GROCERY STORE. Seriously, how far will we take our quest for convenience? How is it that the grocery store down the block is not convenient enough?

One of the mainstays of urban life in New York City is the bodega. I have succumbed to so many urges at the bodega--like a late-night Twix bar or, in my darker moments, full pints of Haagen-Dazs coffee-flavored ice cream. I've rushed into their warm embrace all too many times when I've run out of toilet paper. I casually waltz in when I need a cup of coffee. My relationship with my bodega has lasted longer than most boyfriends. That's the beauty of dense urban living: You are never more than a block away from a fresh roll of toilet paper, candy you shouldn't eat, and emotional dependence on a bodega clerk. It's part of the reason people pick cities in the first place.

These fifteen-minute "grocers," in contrast, are not even really grocery stores. They're delivery services with "dark stores" that regular civilians can't enter. These locations are designed for delivery staff to run in and out at lightning speed so they can bring groceries to people who for some reason don't ever want to leave their apartment to enjoy the city that they chose to live in.

Local bodega clerks and small grocers rightfully argue that they have been catering...