No one ever needs a live pet Pisces the Fishes , three Imperial gallon of piddle , a fish tank , a heater , food , and various fish domicile accoutrements at a present moment ’s notice . And yet , at 11 am on a Tuesday , I texted a unknown and severalize them I demand all of this , and yes , I needed it today . Three 60 minutes and $ 200 later , my new friend get in .
This all - too - simple deliverance come in good manners ofthe mistily mysterious new Robert William Service thaumaturgy . There ’s no app . No web interface . You just text the number your asking , make a requital with Swipe , and Magic handles the rest . Literally . There is nothing separating you from your most fleeting , absurd flying of fancy . For example , there is no account bless - up process during which to think to yourself hold back , really ? Nary a second to reconsider your absurd need . It is equal part abhorrent and glorious . And it works like a goddamn dream .
purportedly , you could need Magic for anything that does n’t violate the laws of the American jurist system . Knowledge , delivery , go steady advice — nothing is theoretically outside the land of what Magic is willing to do for its lazy clientele . It ’s uncommitted all across the US — local couriers permitting . For more fairish asking ( food , commodities , cleaning , etc . ) , it ’s light to opine how Magic gets the job done . Hire a courier to run by the bodega . Queue up a delivery through Seamless . For more bizarre , more intricate postulation , however — who do it .
The of import matter is : That ’s not for you to worry about . And therein lie the appeal . So in testing Magic to the fullest we could , we of line decided to lean towards the strange . I take a chiclid and I need it now .
blithely . Of of course . I ’d love to . The fish will die , but if that ’s what you desire , doom it is my pleasure .
Maybe I was lucky , or maybe it was the $ 50 I paid to jump the 13,685 ( ! ) lazy , more monetarily responsible hoi polloi in line ahead of me , but texting Magic felt like texting a very competent and ephemeral Stepford Wife .
My new nameless friend was n’t just a robot on the other side of the speech sound , a consciousness floating somewhere in digital space — he / she / it had opinions . And input . And the gumption to go talk to an aquarium specialist for 20 minutes about the viability of demanding an inst fish ecosystem as a matter of course . My manipulator even made sure to admit species - specific intellectual nourishment — and rock , plastic tree diagram , a armoured combat vehicle smoke , and a jumbo bag of ready - to - go water . Someone carried 3 congius of fish - quick body of water through New York and up two flight of stairs because I asked . I felt like a scraps human being . But then I fit my new sidekick :
Above : A fish called Stango .
Of naturally , all this convenience come at a price . A pecuniary one , in increase to the ego - loathing . Supposedly , Magic ’s fee varies allot to the sentence and effort it take to fulfill your request , andas one of the cofounder told Wired , there ’s still no unvarying organization in place for determining service boot . We were never explicitly told how much Magic was charging us on top of the Pisces , tank , and messenger price , but we ’d estimate it to be somewhere in the realm of $ 50 to $ 75 , that in addition to the $ 50 I’m - full-bodied - and - lines - don’t - apply - to - me fee . Of course , if you have them discover someone to bring you a traveling bag of chip , they likely wo n’t flip on more than a few horse .
That casual plan of attack likely comes from the fact that Magic came about as more of an accident than a master programme . According to Wired , Magic ’s founders started the request number on a lark , with only a few people put up by to take requests . But as Holy Writ got out this past weekend , it blew up into the G - long waitlist you ’ll encounter yourself at the back of should you seek to apply it today . The founders say there are still just 10 - 20 employee taking your requests , coordinate the motion of contracted local deliveryman from some mysterious bunker . ( mayhap under the sea . peradventure in blank space ? ) But considering the wild demand , Magic is very much in the process of hiring more .
We reached out to Magic to ask about how its employees were pass the sudden burst of asking , but have yet to take heed back . In the meantime , I make up one’s mind to go to the source itself .
That ’s the last we hear , so there are indeed some thing even its regrettably named “ Magicians ” can’t — or won’t — do .
Where Uber and TaskRabbit and WunWun put you side - to - nerve with the inauspicious soul doing your bidding ; you are the contractor . Magic makes that all go away . You just ask a kind friend and POOF , so it is . It prides itself on facelessness . There are no material people to see , no phone calls , no real view on your part at all . No time to reckon , no metre to second guess yourself . You simply express a desire , and this shapeless servicing figures out the rest .
Which is a terrifyingly well-fixed mind-set to fall into . The length we take Magic to were absurd for effect , but the fact that was as inanely simple as it was makes it soft to see how you could fall into the toxic pattern of outsourcing nearly everything . But the instance Magic give on its site hit middling much every flavor of more mundane “ shit , I necessitate to do this ” that might float through your drumhead on a daily basis .
And over 13,000 people ( likely more by now ) are scratching at their phones for a chance to absent one more stratum of fundamental interaction , of human touch , and general accountability . A brand unexampled fashion to offload humanity on some aloof soul in the easygoing way possible .
Oh and for the record , our fish is doing fine .
Daily Newsletter
Get the near technical school , scientific discipline , and culture intelligence in your inbox daily .
News from the future , deport to your present .
