Product packaging is a marketing tax. A product in a shop needs to sell itself. It wears a dressy outfit to seduce consumers. A package that just gets a product to its endpoint without being damaged would be a fraction of the cost (in money and resources).

I’ve been thinking about delivery recently as I’ve been reading about the service economy, minimal ownership and putting together the Possible Futures Game. Packaging for delivered goods has a totally different job to do than one that is seen in a shop. I realised this thinking about drone delivery, but then I realised that it applies to all delivery.
The selling is all done on the website¹. That means that there is some amount of brand building involved in the unboxing process of an expensive product. For the rest, like your subscription to dishwasher tablets, there is nothing gained by extra packaging at all. (Maybe more exercise from taking out the rubbish more often?)

The other thing it unlocks is buying things in precise, and small, quantities. If I use about 8 dishwasher tablets a week¹ then I can get 8 delivered. There’s no need to buy a 12 pack three weeks out of four. I could buy the exact ingredients for a recipe. The supermarket delivery depot could be more like a bulk store. Augers could dispense precise quantities of things into little paper bags and then laser etch the details into the surface².

Because I can order smaller and more frequently it should reduce waste, reduce inventory needed at all points in the chain. I think everyone wins. I like this future, it apeals to my sense of eficiency. The only people I can see who lose out are the people who make flashy cardboard boxes!