Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

You May Never Run Out of Toner Again

We’ve all been there. You need to wash clothes for work the next day, but you discover all too late that you’re all out of detergent. Or you need to print out an important document, and—wouldn’t you know it?—the toner’s gone! Drat!

Admittedly, these are first-world problems, not honest-to-goodness existential crises. Still, these are the kind of mild annoyances that can lead to a grumble or two, followed by a spontaneous late-night trip to some open-all-the-time retail outlet to solve the problem.

Well, Amazon wants to make those sweatpants-wearing jaunts to Walmart or Walgreens at 12:32 a.m. a thing of the past.

Amazon, along with manufacturers GE and Brother, have recently unveiled new products with the ability to communicate automatically with Amazon when their respective active ingredients begin to run low. No need to ever worry about it again; when you’re low on soap or ink, a package simply shows up on your doorstep to restock what’s needed—the stuff your washer, printer and Amazon “know” you need before you do. (Amazon’s also working with the company Gmate to automate shipments of the company’s blood glucose meter for diabetics.)

“The truly magical experience is that it arrives on your doorstep just when you need it,” gushes Daniel Rausch, director of Amazon Devices. Meanwhile, Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru says of Amazon’s new service, “They’re trying to make buying household consumables as seamless and frictionless as possible.”

Magical. Seamless. Frictionless. These are all adjectives that epitomize the promise of technological advancement. No need to trouble yourself with worrying—or even thinking about—buying the stuff that you use continually. It just materializes when needed.

Personally, I find myself a bit ambivalent about the advent of Amazon’s so-called “replenishment” service. The practical, forgetful, human side of me thinks, That sounds awesome! One or two (or ten) fewer things to think about!

But the philosophical side of me wants to take a half-step back and ask some questions: Do I really need to cede control of more and more stuff to a company that knows exactly what’s happening with my washer, printer and blood sugar? Do I really want Amazon to have that personal information—and likely much more as it brings similar products onto the market? And, ultimately, is it really that big a deal to remember to buy detergent every couple of weeks or toner every couple of months?

As cool as the promise of this automating, simplifying technology is, I think it’s still worth some critical consideration before automatically embracing what Amazon’s so eager to sell ‘n’ ship to us automatically.