Home newspaper delivery and the fragility of efficient systems

In his book Antifragile Nassim Nicholas Taleb notes that the more efficient a system is, the more it is vulnerable to widespread disruption than is an inefficient one. (The efficient system is fragile and the inefficient one is antifragile or at least less fragile.)

We are living through an example here in the Boston area. Once upon a time, each newspaper had its own paper boys. Newspaper trucks dropped off bundles at designated locations where they were picked up by boys on bicycles or on foot (or their mothers if they had the flu) who would then deliver twenty or thirty papers each. (We didn't have newspaper delivery in the town I where I grew up (too rural) but in college I remember getting up at 4:30 each morning to deliver the Daily Dartmouth, which was an enjoyable way to get an early start on the day.)

Then, to make it more efficient, the newspapers dispensed with paper boys and used contract employees to deliver large numbers of papers.

To make it even more efficient, this was outsourced to third parties.

Seeking to achieve an even higher degree of efficiency, all the newspapers started using the same outsource provider.

The Boston Globe operates this way and its outsourced delivery operations deliver the Globe, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Boston Herald, the Lynn Daily Item, MetroWest News, and some other papers.

To make the system even more efficient, the Globe switched from this outsource provider to another that promised "better delivery performance" and "substantial cost savings." To achieve the cost savings, the new outsourcee hired fewer people, and the system collapsed on December 28th when the new delivery system was put in place.

As a result of the Globe's single decision, the delivery of all newspapers in the Boston area descended into chaos on the 28th of December. We have not received the FT since then and the Globe is being delivered on an ad hoc basis, including by a Globe columnist who happens to live in town. (He wrote a humorous column (link) describing his delivery route.)

The problem with efficiency is that it ultimately destroys reliability and undermines quality.