The pros and cons (umption) of it all

I recall an evening as a young boy when my family and I went out to a restaurant that had recently been opened not too far from where we lived. Having not experienced this kind of thing all that often, I began to ask my parents a few questions about what I should expect when we were out.
They told me that there would be waiters – people who came to our table and asked what we wanted, and then would bring it to us when it was ready – and that it was important to remember to use my manners as I would normally. So it was admittedly quite surprising when, upon arrival at this new American diner trading as Sizzler, I could not see any such people inside the restaurant.
This would be my first taste of life as a prosumer, a term conceived by Alvin Toffler, who defined prosumers as ‘people who produce some of the goods and services entering their own consumption’ (Kotler, 1986). Not only were there no waiters, the tables had no plates, no cutlery, no glasses and no napkins. All of the food was in the middle of the restaurant, and I had to work out for myself how much of each item I wanted, for how long I would leave my meat on the grill, at what point to stop filling my cup, and just how much ice-cream I would be able to fit in my bowl without being told off!
While this is not necessarily what my parents had in mind, as Ritzer and Jugenson (2010) observe, ‘the fact is that many people seem to prefer and to enjoy prosuming, even in the cases in which they are forced into this position.’ It is true that the concept of prosumption was at first challenging, but there is now evidence of such activities occurring all over the world within many industries. I will now gladly opt to avoid long queues at Coles and go through the self-checkout, an alternative means of paying for goods without the aid of a store employee.
Prosumption was once considered the way of the future, and despite the misgivings of some major retailers abroad, it is now clearly the method of the present.

Reference List
Kotler, P 1986, ‘The Prosumer Movement: a New Challenge for Marketers’, Advances in Consumer Research, vol.13, pp. 510 – 513.
Ritzer, G & Jurgenson, N 2010, ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital prosumer’’, Journal of Consumer Culture, vol.10, no.1, pp. 13 – 36.