Economically it makes more sense to buy cheaper and faster. But this eats into the fabric of society and offers nothing in exchange.

The same could be said of many previous innovations going back to the industrial revolution. We've always found new jobs for people and generally raised the quality of living.

    Then there's the centralisation, control and privacy part - amazon gets to decide what products your area will be supplied with, it gets to know your eating habits, your walking habits, etc. Will pretty much own you and the neighbourhood.

This is true of many grocery chains though already. They can track that information based off rewards cards and purchase history. I'm pretty sure Amazon won't be the only company to do this technology will either be replicated by other companies or turned into a service for other companies to leverage.

How about those people go teach their local kids about science? Or volunteer to take care of the homeless or the elderly? That seems like it would benefit society much more than talking to a few bored people in a checkout line.

Except they won't, because nobody will pay for that. It's easy to find an alternative occupation - it's much more difficult to propose one that's reachable when you consider the starting point and economic reality (living costs money; retraining costs money; people low on the ladder usually don't have cash to burn).

Well, right now the U.S. has spent about $4 TRILLION on bombing countries in the Middle East... Maybe we could use some of that money for a better purpose.

The world has enough money to do these things, it's just a question of priorities and replacing greed with compassion.

Right. The money is there. But the economy is structured around money being spent only when you absolutely have to - so it doesn't reach those nice things while there are more directly profitable things like bombing the shit out of Middle East...

I think you're incorrectly separating the 'fabric of society' from the economy. The economy describes all things that are valuable to us as a society and that includes interactions with the staff at our local grocery shops. When you say "Economically it makes more sense to buy cheaper and faster" that is obviously not true for you and probably many others who are prepared to pay for the social interactions that local shops provide.

There will still remain room for shops with cashiers in the market just as there is still room for restaurants with waiters, tables and chairs despite the innovation of drive throughs and fast food.

As long as you are part of a large enough group who is willing to pay for traditional style shops then they will continue to exist.

No, I think GP is totally correct. Economy does not describe "all things that are valuable to us", nor does it describe relative value between things when considering the whole picture of one's life. Economy is a system of powerful feedback loops; it amplifies momentary relative value differentials. People like the human contact, but due to financial situation prefer cheaper groceries? If shops can save on cutting nice clerks out of the loop (or working them down into zombiefication), they'll outcompete ones that try to stick to "old model", but guess what - another part of the economy is right there to take away the marginal savings you as a customer just "made", and thus you're no better than before in terms of spending money, but you've just lost another nice aspect of the society.

The economy often gives us good solutions, but it also often gives us bad ones. The economy doesn't care either way.

C.f. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/.

Maybe I am incorrectly conflating Economics with the Economy. I understand your point about economic forces producing an outcome that is less optimal due to our failure to consider present and future effects of our decisions.

My point is that if you look at this from an economic point of view, you should be able to figure out whether or not it is good or bad (or at least know what information you need to figure out if it's good or bad). See my other comment on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108119

We could, as you say, analyze and figure out whether or not any given market "innovation" is good or bad, but the big problem is - we can't meaningfully act on such information. Coordination is superhard[0], and in the meantime we all make individual choices based on momentary value differentials - choices which the market will happily aggregate and amplify, whether we like it or not.

You're spot-on in splitting the problem into two in your other comment.

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[0] - especially if you frown at one of its most powerful form in a large society - government regulations.