It's a Monday evening in February. For those not away on ski trips, this time of week is rarely fun. Nathan returns home after a grueling day at work, soaked by the rain and chilled by the cold. To keep his relaxation time, cooking is out of the question: instead, he orders his meal in a few clicks via a delivery app.
Freed from this chore, he then "escapes" (really?) onto social media. The news feed scrolls by, systematically interspersed with commercial breaks. The delivery driver rings, and dinner is delivered, ready to eat. Like most people today, Nathan then settles down in front of a series. Since his subscription is not the premium one, his viewing is interrupted by ad breaks. He then remembers something he has to do: write an email that must be sent by tomorrow morning. Given that it's late, he chooses efficiency and delegates the writing to AI. The message is dispatched immediately. His day is over at last and Nathan can go to sleep.
This evening ritual is by no means an exception. Nathan is actually a reflection of a generalized behavior. In 2026, the average time spent on social media globally is 2 hours and 40 minutes per day, according to annual reports from Data Reportal. This figure is continuing to increase and has become the fuel for a business model that is unique to this century: the "Laziness", or "Convenience" Economy.
Behind the promise of time optimization touted by these services, field analyses describe a more complex reality. By delegating physical or cognitive tasks, the user seeks to buy a space of "freedom". However, data indicates that this freed-up time is frequently just spent on social networks and, more broadly, the "attention" economy.
This observation raises a central question: do these innovations provide a real liberation from daily constraints, or do they just result in a transfer of free time towards technologies that are designed to capture the eye?
Automating Desire
While the term "Uberization" is recent, the quest for automation to save the population time is not new. The post-war era saw the birth of the foundations of our modern daily life, notably thanks to the advent of household appliances. At the end of the 20th century, a man filed a revolutionary patent: "1-click," a one-click purchasing system bypassing tedious validation steps. That man? A certain Jeff Bezos (and three of his associates).
The rise of the Internet then propelled delivery into a new dimension, with Amazon in pole position. Meanwhile, as city centers began to empty, hypermarkets sprouted up across the globe, forcing many small shopkeepers to close their doors.
The true tipping point occurred in the late 2000s, thanks to the combination of smartphones and geolocation. In 2009, in a San Francisco garage, the idea for Uber was born, a platform that directly connects private drivers and customers. Later, the arrival of Uber Eats and its clones permanently popularized the concept of "Uberization". For companies, it was the start of a race for critical mass. Players like Uber Technologies, Deliveroo, or Just Eat burned billions of dollars in cash flow to win over market share. But as in physics, nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is just transformed.
A Transfer Rather Than a Time Gain
This is where the rupture lies. On one side, an affluent, hurried class seeks to buy time. On the other, precarious workers, rich in time but poor in money, put themselves at the service of this system. Behind the postcard of modernity hides a darker reality: scandals related to delivery drivers and dark kitchens, identity theft, and remuneration that is well below the statutory hourly minimum wage.
Quick commerce marked the peak of this trend, promising to deliver daily groceries within 10 or 15 minutes. At the height of their success during the Covid-19 crisis, these solutions nevertheless saw their bubble burst shortly after, taking down startups like Getir or Gorillas. Sector giants, however, held their ground.
Despite the appearance of new regulations, the economy of time-saving continues its journey. Today, automation is everywhere: self-checkouts in supermarkets, ordering keypads at fast-food restaurants, delivery lockers to avoid having to wait at home, vending machines for bread, pizza, or fresh cheese, electronic tolls and robot vacuum cleaners.
The list is infinite and extends to almost every aspect of our lives. However, if these services are successful, it is because they respond to a real desire. Who doesn't rejoice at escaping the chore of washing the dishes or vacuuming? But the real question lies elsewhere. While the time gain is indisputable, it is the use we make of this freed-up time that poses a problem today.
The Trap of Freed-Up Time
This new environment is disrupting our behavior. According to the Fondation Jean-Jaures, 45% of French people suffer from an "epidemic of laziness" that confines them to their homes, a rate that climbs to 50% in the Ile-de-France region. Simultaneously, new consumption habits are taking root: nearly half of young people under 35 now has food delivered to their home at least once a month.
Yet, we have never had so much free time. In thirty years, the effective annual working time in France has dropped, falling from 1,814 hours in 1990 to approximately 1,600 hours just before the pandemic. This is the equivalent of gaining six weeks of vacation. In theory, this reclaimed time should have been synonymous with health and happiness. However, the reality is quite different.
Returning to the example of Nathan, who chooses to stay home: he simply pays to outsource his chores. The time thus freed is immediately captured by the attention economy, starting with Meta or Alphabet, which convert this available time into advertising revenue. A double flow of value where the consumer pays twice: with his credit card on one side, and with his attention on the other.
Is this time gain truly beneficial? In view of the dozens of studies published on the subject, the answer is no: isolation is increasing, mental health is wavering, and the sense of well-being is collapsing.
So, who's to blame? While the web giants have every interest in maximizing our dependence on screens, the management of our free time belongs to us. Although this observation paints a rather somber human picture, it also describes a heavy structural trend that nothing seems capable of slowing down. For the investor, the question is no longer whether this model is desirable, but to recognize that it has become unavoidable on the international stockmarket stage.
Laziness Stocks
Uber Technologies: pioneer and leader in meal delivery and effortless travel. The company captures a colossal share of the comfort budget of urban dwellers.
Meta: cognitive laziness makes the fortune of the group that owns Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Threads. Its algorithm was designed as the perfect way to retain the user as long as possible while displaying ultra-targeted advertising.
Netflix: no need to introduce the leader in streaming. Since its creation, it has invited itself into most homes; the cheapest subscriptions display advertisements in the middle of series that are watched by millions of viewers.
VusionGroup: the French mid-cap is the world leader in smart electronic labels for retailers. They allow supermarkets to automate inventory and price management in real time, facilitating the integration of self-checkouts in the process.
Instacart: where Uber Eats handles the evening meal, Instacart is the North American leader in grocery delivery. A pure product of the laziness economy, the company combines home delivery with an ultra-powerful advertising platform integrated into its application.
InPost: the king of constraint-free delivery recently acquired Mondial Relay in France. A leader in lockers, InPost operates mainly in Europe where it handles more than 1.4bn parcels per year, supported by a network of over 61,000 automated machines.
