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Comment by Joe8Bit | Hacker News Reader

This is a really interesting point and it resonates with my experience. When I moved to the US from Europe I was suddenly in a world where people had enormous fridges and freezers and could buy a massive amount of food at a time. They would never have fit in dinky little European apartment before!

This is also my experience for folks that live in NY.

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Large fridges are available here; I think there's a lot more to it than fridge size. I suspect that big fridges are popular in the US because in much of the US shopping is extremely inconvenient, rather than shopping being inconvenient _because big fridges are popular_.

Shopping is always inconvenient. Even if the shopping is online and delivered, it’s pretty inconvenient to have to find stuff and schedule a time and take the delivered groceries in when they arrive. One of the features some of the newer 15 minute delivery shops have is allowing you to select only items in stock, which saves all of the actual store time, since you don’t have to be glued to your phone for the inevitable questions.

I walk past two supermarkets and a bunch of smaller shops on my way home from work; shopping is fairly convenient, so I shop basically on demand. What _would_ be inconvenient is doing a "weekly shop"; I don't have a car, and even if I did, the nearby supermarkets don't have parking. So, no need for a big fridge.

I live 100 metres from a store that sells pretty much anything from food to alcohol and then some more. Within 10 min walk I've got access to see much stuff that I would die before trying it all. If I jump in a car, I've got access to enough shopping that I could buy anything from a cake to a sofa. it can be convenient but yes, not everyone would have such access to products.

In Helsinki, my grocery store (~Safeway) is in the building across the street, and open 24/7. In BC, the store was a 10-minute car drive away, and open 9am-9pm.

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