Book Review: Against Convenience by Gabe Bullard
It Has Been A While Since I've Seen Someone Actively Praise Luddites. Until Now. Seriously, the title of this review pretty well sums up most of what you need to know about this book... that you could likely have figured out the gist of just from the title, subtitle, and description - at least as they exist roughly a month or so before publication, as I write this review.
Even from a - wildly - "left of center" (at least in US politics) approach, this book actually does a rather remarkable job of being a polemic without feeling like one. It is absolutely a polemic in that the entire purpose of this *really* extended essay is to specifically attack what Bullard calls "conveniences" but are more accurately "technology companies making decisions and becoming too popular to easily find another alternative". But it is also a polemic that openly questions even itself at times.
While still openly praising Luddism.
Go figure.
From a documentation side, this clocks in at a solid 30% of the overall text - meeting the Sagan Standard (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence), which likely does apply here. Perhaps cherry picked a touch, again, this is also one text where perhaps the evidence cited doesn't always make Bullard's case as strongly as he claims it does.
Ultimately this book absolutely reads more as an invitation to personal consideration than a hellfire sermon. It is going to ask you to consider the things it labels as conveniences and whether those things are truly worth it to you. Some of those things - electronic medical records that make every doc you use (so long as they use the same systems) able to see your entire medical history at a glance - are absolutely worth it and literally saved my wife's life just a couple of months ago. Perhaps others - the social media I actively declared my independence from a month ago and now that a certain couple of important-to-me events are concluded I am more pro-actively leaving - will be less so. The physical eBooks (because *all* books are nothing more than a collection of electrons arranged in a particular pattern and I refuse to slaughter forests for my personal amusement or education) that can carry more volumes than the Library at Alexandria in the palm of my hand? Bullard will argue that they are soulless and are causing the downfall of humanity. I will tell you that I've read more books *because* of these devices than I ever read back in my "dead tree era", *and* that the average price per book I've paid over literally thousands of such transactions over the last 15 years is a small fraction of what I would have had to pay - both monetarily and in regards to environmental degradation - to get those same volumes on the carcasses of murdered trees.
Regardless, Bullard does a pretty solid job here of exploring some of the contours of what a lot of this could look like, even if from a certain exacting perspective. Yet at the end of the day, while Bullard perhaps gives a voice to some of what some are thinking that maybe didn't have that voice - which alone is useful - this really comes down to Bullard actively writing a book that, well, very nearly anyone could have. But he actively did, and did a pretty solid amount of research to back his arguments, so if you're inclined to read such a polemic... well, this one will be available for all in and after mid September 2026.
To be clear, the star deduction here is specifically because of the distinction between "convenience" and "agency". Bullard's entire thesis, he claims, is about "convenience", except that it really isn't. It is about *agency* and being able to more easily make the active choice to use technology or not. This distinction is key, and that he misses it informs quite a bit of the rest of the slant to this entire text. Still, because Bullard does such a good job of being more of an exploration and a question rather than a dictum and exclamation, the key miss at the central thesis doesn't hurt as much as it could have and still results in a thoughtful, if misguided, examination that invites the reader to reflect for themselves on their own lives and priorities.
Very much recommended.
This review of Against Convenience by Gabe Bullard was originally written on August 10, 2026.
