This isn't criticism, just curiosity: do you feel guilty when you pay someone to cut your hair or dispose of your garbage (assuming the latter service isn't included in your housing... that varies, of course).

Those are both things that would have been done by servants in the past, but that most people still have done today rather than doing themselves.

One advantage of having a buzz cut is that it's easy to cut my own hair, but when I had another hair style I didn't feel guilty about getting it cut. I hated that it consumed my time, but that's another thing.

Getting a haircut, or getting disposalists to handle rubbish, are both professions which require a degree of training and experience. I'm paying for a service I could not do myself.

I feel like having a person deliver food or do my laundry is at the other side of the spectrum. I can do both things, and its obvious that those who are working in those jobs roles are not in the economic bracket to afford it themselves.

I can't speak for the GP, but I think some of the guilt from realizing that the people who perform these jobs often have a very low standard of living and very little job security or life prospects.

Of course there have always been poor service workers in that situation, and as a society we've haven't really cared much about it (i.e. decades long minimum wage stagnation). People are talking about it now because of the stark contrast against the VC-fueled valuations of these companies, and the rapidly growing inequality of places like the Bay Area and NYC.

Median garbage collector income in the US is close to median personal income, and they don't even get out of the truck on most stops anymore. They're also widely unionized with substantial benefits.

I haven't bothered having anyone cut my hair in years, but yeah, people working at SuperCuts make crap, in much the same way and for the same reason that people working at McDonalds make crap.

I do too, although there is no reason to really. You outsource when you pay for anything - from tax to broccoli!

The only way to escape is to learn how to go money-free and feral!

there is a nice, wide middle path you know. outsourcing something I cannot do properly/safely/takes me a lot of time and I don't want to go through learning curve - that's OK. outsourcing something that i can do in couple of (tens of) minutes - that's being lazy. no way around it.

Lazy is not a bad thing. Sloth is not a sin.

If someone works 40 hours a week I think it is fair dinkum.

If you have a job, your serving someone to.