[HN Gopher] Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San...
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon is closing its cashierless stores in NYC, San Francisco and
Seattle
Author : taubek
Score : 221 points
Date : 2023-03-05 08:34 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cstoredive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cstoredive.com)
| madballster wrote:
| I vividly recall seeing a feature on TV in the mid 80s where they
| were discussing future technologies for the year 2000. One of
| them was the cashier-less store: We'd all put in our grocery
| items in the carts and then the payment would be automagically
| calculated, no cashier or manual scanning necessary. They assumed
| it would be microchip based, the chip embedded in packaging. What
| ever happened to this? Why did this idea fail?
| alsodumb wrote:
| Not exactly the same but very close - Decathlon, a french
| sports-goods company uses RFID tags on each item to make
| checkout easier - https://www.decathlon-
| united.media/media/decathlon-united-rf...
|
| Once you want to checkout, you drop everything you bought into
| a big bin near the checkout area - it calculates the total
| based on all RFID tags, you pay, take everything and leave.
|
| Imo this is better than checkout in the carts - don't need to
| attach a payment POS and carry bags to every single cart lol.
| gotorazor wrote:
| Oh yes!
|
| I do remember doing this as well at Decathlon.
| danhor wrote:
| Decathlon does this (at least in the stores near me). You put
| the items into a bin at the self-checkout and everything is
| recognized.
|
| My guess is that that the time savings aren't large enough to
| offset the cost for stores with lower-cost goods (especially
| since most time-intensive products in a supermarket are things
| like produce that needs to be weighed and self-service pastry).
| gotorazor wrote:
| RFID
|
| We have the tech to do this. They library system where I am put
| RFID tags in all the books. You put the all books you want in a
| special tray at checkout. (There is still a checkout counter
| with a machine.) The computer will instantly display all the
| books you have on the tray. You touch the screen to confirm all
| the books and it will check them out and print a paper receipt.
|
| They can probably eliminate the checkout too, maybe. I imagine
| that they do it so that the user (you) can confirm what items
| the computer thinks they wanted to check out.
| livinglist wrote:
| Uniqlo stores are doing this, when you check out, you just put
| all the stuff you grabbed into a bin and the system will tell
| you the total price right away.
| rippercushions wrote:
| It didn't: Uniqlo and Decathlon, to name a few, use exactly
| this concept at their self checkouts.
|
| However, because RFID chips are too weak to be reliably read in
| bulk and at a distance, you need to deposit your items one by
| one in a special trough that scans them. And this is only
| possible because both Uniqlo and Decathlon are 100% house brand
| and can thus ensure the chips are present in everything, which
| is why random corner stores or supermarkets can't copy them.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| The last time I went to Uniqlo, we just dumped all our
| clothes in the bin at once and it scanned all of them
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| This actually exists. There is a pilot Aldi in the Netherlands.
|
| The idea does not fail in countries with labour shortages. Even
| with increased shoplifting- it is simply too asinine employing
| people sitting on their ass all day scanning groceries. Labour
| costs real money here.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| That's how a fair amount of stores work, at least in France /
| Spain. Uniqlo and decathlon for example.
|
| You do need to put the items in a box at the exit to pay (you
| can't just walk out of the store with the shopping cart), but
| no manual scanning.
|
| Edit: should have refreshed the page before commenting,
| Decathlon and uniqlo are popular here
| Razengan wrote:
| I've always wondered: Do we really need to put people in shops?
|
| We have had vending machines for centuries, most kinds of shops
| (that don't need a social aspect) could easily just be sealed
| warehouses with product dispensers dotted outside the walls.
| thfuran wrote:
| There are very few items I would ever buy from such a store.
| You can't really get a good look at the items in a vending
| machine, and you can't put an item back.
| Razengan wrote:
| But for something you've always bought, the mundane daily
| items, you don't really need to check anything, same as with
| regular vending machines.
|
| Returns could be implemented.
| kube-system wrote:
| There's at least one item I look at the nutrition facts for
| every time I go to the store. Even if the vast majority of
| my items are the same, it only takes one item where I have
| not memorized the nutrition facts to make that an
| inconvenience. Or any produce, where people like to judge
| quality and ripeness. And also, many people like to browse
| for new products.
|
| I guess it is possible, but it sounds like it's all the
| disadvantages of Instacart with all of the disadvantages of
| going to the store.
| thfuran wrote:
| I don't want to buy bruised apples or cracked eggs or
| overripe melons. I'm not going to go to a second store just
| for, I don't know, milk and dish soap.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Relatedly, this announcement came on the same day they announced
| they were pausing the second phase of their HQ2 development in
| Virginia:
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/90860480/amazon-hq2-construction...
|
| This is significant in that the HQ2 bidding process was basically
| a competition by local governments to see who could give Amazon
| the largest tax breaks and other incentives so that Amazon would
| choose their city as the site its location. See:
|
| https://www.brookings.edu/research/five-economic-development...
| badrabbit wrote:
| Amazon is such an anti-human company. From their warehouses to
| their tech workers they are terrible against people. That said,
| if people like these stores then good for them.
|
| I am honestly shocked and confused when people enjoy this. Or
| targeted ads or *GPT generated content. I am not anti-tech by any
| means. Maybe I am just not impressed and awed enough by these
| technologies to overlook the downsides?
|
| I don't support "all progress is good progress" mentality with
| tech. I find these cashierless stores lazy and needlessly
| compromising on privacy. Just have a man-trap (locking revolving
| door for the unaware) that lets you in after you scan a card or
| speak/type your amazon id and give shoppers a smart cart thay
| detects what you put in and use cameras only to enforce all items
| you take are put in the cart. That and facial recognition privacy
| protection will get me to go there (but hey, i order everything
| for delivery anyways).
|
| They can do better while protecting consumers but choose not to
| because of the precedent set allowing them to track movements on
| a store as a feature. So why can't this be used to keep you safe
| in apartment complexes, parking lots (car theives),etc... soon
| facial recognition will be id'ing me everywhere I go! The laws to
| protect people are nowhere near where they should be. So what are
| my choices? Move to the arctic and build an igloo?
| anaganisk wrote:
| You would be so disappointed to know that people value their
| convenience and 5 minutes of fame more than anything. See
| TikTok, it captures so much data, and it's publicly known, Even
| TikTok doesn't deny it. Yet people dont stop using it.
| Companies are just taking advantage of it. See the positive
| comments here. It almost boils down to I hate checkout lines,
| so I want the convenience of being tracked, let my face
| expressions/action on seeing a product be allowed to train some
| Ad engine etc etc. We trade off a lot of personal data for
| transactions we conduct daily using tech, yet we are utterly
| surprised when that is used against us. Amazon bought One
| Medical. Buying cheese every day? Guess who is gonna soon get
| pre diagnosed with heart issues or marked with higher premiums.
| Others will laugh at my comment, but I won't be surprised, at
| least.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Much to my surprise, I genuinely loved the experience im the
| Amazon Go stores. I was super skeptical, but it is really
| convenient. I didn't know how much I hate checkout lines or
| self-service checkout counters until I visited an Amazon Go
| store.
|
| Amazon also owns Ring which can be used to protect your home
| (although it's certainly less sophisticated). I own a Ring home
| security system and I'm very fond of it. Same for my parents
| when they go for their vacation home - big game changer for
| their ease of mind. Now, I'm not super fond of how Ring shared
| footage without consent in some countries with authorities; but
| it's probably the company I trust most with my personal data
| footage etc. And I deem them more capable in protecting my
| data.
| ma2rten wrote:
| The checkout lane at the grocery store is not really the
| pinnacle of meaningful human interaction.
| IvyMike wrote:
| I know this is about the Amazon Go stores, but there's a "Just
| Walk Out Shopping" Amazon Fresh store near me. Before I went it
| sounded like something I would like. But no.
|
| I could give a list of different features I disliked, but in the
| end, it kind of comes down to the fact that the overall vibe is
| "The Opposite of Trader Joe's".
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Ok, so store based on an app, which nobody really wants to use.
|
| Guess what is predominant in BEV chargers? Yeah, stupid apps.
| wiseleo wrote:
| A better approach could be to mimic Japan and install vending
| machines. You walk into the store and see walls of vending
| machines. Shrink goes to zero. Restocking the machines becomes
| the only job. They can augment their Whole Foods chain first.
| Laaas wrote:
| Is this because of shoplifting? In that case, an innovative
| (dystopian?) solution would be to place AI-guided water cannons
| to shoot thieves.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| Yes. If it was anything else they'd mention it.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Eh? In principle these should be less vulnerable to
| shoplifting than a normal convenience store with automatic
| checkouts. It's more likely just because, well, it's not
| clearly better than a normal convenience store with automatic
| checkouts.
| EGreg wrote:
| They do mention it.
|
| They simply don't let people in who don't already have an
| account with them:
| https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/22/16920784/amazon-go-
| cashie...
| fmajid wrote:
| Because people who routinely steal stuff will draw the line
| at jumping over a turnstile /s
| EGreg wrote:
| Fine then make a rotating door or other thing you can't
| jump over!
| orangepurple wrote:
| Full height turnstiles activated by a digital ID would reduce
| this problem to a manageable level
| Laaas wrote:
| Indeed, it makes you wonder why this is not the case already.
| It does not seem like an especially hard thing to do.
|
| It makes you wonder why they decided this was a good idea in
| the first place. Seemed sort of obvious that they'd have a
| shoplifting problem in a region where it's already not too
| uncommon.
|
| Perhaps they assumed the surveillance would deter thieves,
| but surveillance is only a deterrence if the local police can
| afford to enforce the law effectively.
| realworldperson wrote:
| [dead]
| novia wrote:
| I'm really bummed about this! I wanted to be able to just go in a
| store and grab a juice or an apple and then leave the store. I
| don't live in NYC or San Fran or Seattle, but I'd hoped these
| stores would spread.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| They seem to be doing pretty well, looks like they are closing
| their least popular stores. E.g. they are only closing 2 out of
| their 9 NY stores.
|
| We have them in London and they are pretty convenient.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I wanted to be able to just go in a store and grab a juice
| or an apple and then leave the store._
|
| So, basically something a vending machine could provide?
|
| We've had those since like the '50s, except without computer
| vision, user tracking and machine learning.
|
| I don't know why Amazon was trying to reinvent the wheel here
| in the most expensive way possible.
| nprateem wrote:
| To stock more than 20 products?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| So, more of them and bigger and having employees stock them
| up from the back like these British ones from the '60s?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rGPXXk8VE
| htag wrote:
| Vending machines offer some overhead of horizontal space
| for the payment system over store refrigerators, but if you
| want to stock many products you can just put several
| vending machines next to each other.
|
| Maybe the largest extra expense of vending machines is that
| store refrigerators are _deeper_ which means they need to
| be restocked less, or that the most popular products can
| take up less 'slots' because the total number of drinks per
| slots is larger.
| [deleted]
| novia wrote:
| A vending machine for an apple is a bad idea. Apples rot,
| especially in enclosed spaces. Customers want to be able to
| pick the best looking apple from a pile of apples.
|
| They don't want to fiddle around with a payment system that
| might reject their five dollar bill for being too wrinkled,
| or fail to accurately read their card, just to be served a
| bruised apple at the end of it.
|
| Think about other even more perishable items, like seafood.
| Do you want a fish vending machine? Or do you want to be able
| to examine your food before you decide to purchase it?
|
| Vending machines work well for nonperishables. Grocery stores
| work well for perishable items.
|
| Grocery stores have a massive time cost for picking up your
| items, so it makes sense to get a lot of things at once,
| which only compounds the waiting problem for other customers.
|
| Amazon's solution gets rid of that time cost. The only part
| you have to worry about is the trouble of getting in the
| door, and that takes the same amount of time no matter how
| many items people are buying. The barrier to entry would be
| being technologically sophisticated enough to download an app
| on your phone. Some people don't want to do that, and they're
| free to shop at other stores.
|
| The Amazon Go stores aren't expensive over-engineered vending
| machines. There's still a time cost to using a vending
| machine. The innovative part is saving people time.
| alden5 wrote:
| after going to one quite regularly its quite funny when people
| don't know whats happening. they scan their amazon app, grab
| something, then walk out and look super confused where they're
| supposed to pay for what they've grabbed
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I never went into one of those stores, but I'm down in Florida,
| and my apartment building has what they call a "sundry shop".
| It's connected to the main office but it's 24 hours - you get
| in with an electronic key. It's like a little convenience
| store, like a corner store in NYC. But the checkout is self-
| service, and there's a camera.
|
| It's amazing, I love it.
| danpalmer wrote:
| My grandparents used to live in a small village (rural U.K.).
| The village shop was tiny, just a few shelves and a fridge
| with basics. No checkout, no cameras, often no volunteer
| (definitely no paid staff). They just wrote down what they
| took in a little book and paid at the end of the month.
|
| In small enough groups where there is a good sense of
| community it's amazing what can work.
| seneca wrote:
| It doesn't really even have to be all that small, just high
| trust. There are road-side produce stands that run on the
| honor system all over the rural American southeast. They
| have no idea who will show up. Many are on country
| highways, even.
| kornhole wrote:
| Perhaps people in NYC and SF are opting more for cash. I lived in
| both cities and would walk right past these and into the good old
| bodegas that prefer cash which is all I would ever pay with.
| code_runner wrote:
| Used one of these in an airport and it was fine. Felt like a
| novelty in that instance. I didn't need a particular app but they
| did employ a person to explain and help... but it was a small
| enough booth he could've just been the cashier.
|
| Probably 20-30 seconds faster than a normal place? I actually do
| like the idea in general but the implementation is ok at best and
| I didn't even have to use yet-another-proprietary-app
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| [flagged]
| kenjackson wrote:
| Wow. Thanks for that link. That is eye opening.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I used one of these stores often in Chicago. The very very
| frustrating part for me was their limited hours. It seems like if
| you only have 1-2 staff members you could stay open very late and
| still be profitable. I'm pretty sure the loop store I went to
| often closed at 7.
| mabbo wrote:
| I hope this doesn't signal the end of the entire business model.
|
| I know there are still speed bumps and problems to address, but
| cashier in a convenience store is one of those awful jobs I don't
| think anyone should have to do if we can avoid it.
|
| I've had plenty of friends and family work those jobs, and
| briefly did it myself (at a gas station). Often these friends
| worked overnight, with the risk of being held up at 3am when no
| one is around. Usually it's just standing around waiting for a
| customer, with occasional chores to be done.
|
| And it always pays as little as legally possible.
|
| Let's destroy this job.
| paxys wrote:
| This is easy to say from the perspective of someone making tech
| money, but plenty of people (immigrants, minorities, people
| below the poverty line, people without a high school diploma)
| depend on such jobs and will gladly do them. Unless you also
| have a solution for employment for all such groups, "let's get
| rid of these jobs" comes off as way too simplistic. The
| benefits of automation are largely enjoyed by the upper
| classes, not the people who are displaced.
| hezralig wrote:
| You have realize the purpose of SV automation then. Not to
| advance human productivity but to rid itself of a class of
| people en bulk.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Cashier jobs are entry level positions. As such they are also a
| means of advancement to other roles in retail. Countless people
| started as cashier and worked their way up to roles like
| customer services, buyer, store manager etc.
|
| These jobs are also an opportunity for students to earn money
| and get work experience. But yes, "Let's destroy this job"
| simply because you don't like it?
|
| Since your profile states you are a staff developer at Shopify,
| here's a Shopify link that outlines the value that the role of
| cashier brings to a retail environment:
|
| https://www.shopify.com/retail/retail-jobs-common-positions
| wetpaws wrote:
| This is a fallacy imo. The less mundane, mindnumbing and
| highly automated jobs we have, the better.
|
| There is a reason why for example living human beings do not
| manually switch phone lines anymore when you make a phone
| call - you could rationalize it as much as you can, but
| frankly humans we born for better stuff.
| bogomipz wrote:
| If you are going to state something is fallacy then you
| might want to substantiate the fallacy. Instead all you
| provide is your opinion that the elimination of a class of
| jobs is for "the better."
|
| What I have stated is that entry level positions are a
| means of advancement in retail environments. This based on
| empirical fact.
|
| >"There is a reason why for example living human beings do
| not manually switch phone lines anymore when you make a
| phone call"
|
| No, the reason "human beings do not manually switch phone
| lines anymore" is because the growth of subscriber lines
| exceeded the capacity for manual switching in Central
| Offices. It had nothing to do with nature of the job.
| doomrobo wrote:
| Likely relevant, NYC passed a law 3 years ago requiring stores to
| accept cash
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/nyregion/nyc-cashless-ban...
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| Amazon announced plans to begin accepting cash (and SNAP) at Go
| stores but I'm not sure how far it got
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/amazon-exec-tells-employees-...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Scuds wrote:
| They built a Go store into their office in Bellevue,WA - it's got
| the freezers and shelves but it hasn't opened. They built a Four
| Star store into their HQ in Seattle, and they closed it a year
| later. There's several Amazon Books stores in the area, GONE.
| It's like their push for retail is a total dead-end.
| dayvid wrote:
| I liked their bookstores a lot. Shame they all shut down before
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| I went to one in SoCal and was terrified. the entrance they asked
| me you to scan my prime membership, and told me that I can then
| fill out my basket - and basically walk out with my stuff without
| checkout - just moving it into a bag on the way out.
|
| I asked how they know what's in my basket to charge me for it and
| they said that there are cameras watching me the whole time and
| noting what I take off the shelf and put in it.
|
| I was beyond creeped out by the whole experience. Never went to
| that store again.
|
| Knowing that they not only watch what I'm buying but also
| recording and analyzing my gate, motion, gaze, microecpressions
| etc freaked me out.
|
| Amazon's vision to cattle-ize humanity for profit is not
| attractive to me.
| code_duck wrote:
| One thing to note is that other retailers do that too - track
| people around stores with Bluetooth and I assume other methods,
| noting where shoppers linger, what they buy and what they
| hesitate on. But they don't tell us they do this.
| jarjoura wrote:
| Not that you're wrong, but there's definitely a huge
| perceptual difference when one method is done visually and
| another is done anonymously.
|
| Amazon Go's system knows who I am, what item I grab off the
| shelf, put back and then what I ultimately leave with.
| There's so much personal information they gather from that
| order and it shows up downstream across their other products.
|
| Bluetooth tracking can't attach a face to that and that is a
| far more appropriate use of tracking. It aids restocking
| decisions, promotions, etc, that I have no problem
| participating in.
|
| My point is, if I like a particular item, I don't mind the
| store knowing that and keeping it stocked, and paired with
| other items I buy together with it. I just don't want the
| store to know my emotional state, confusion, and speed at
| which I grabbed an item.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| They go as far as having lights transmit which part of the
| store you're in with imperceptible flickering:
| https://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/systems/lighting-
| system...
| neckardt wrote:
| I walk past an amazon go store on my way to work. It's super
| convenient if I need something, I can be in and out within less
| than 30 seconds. The problem is I rarely have anything I need to
| buy on my commute.
| mmanfrin wrote:
| I do not like Amazon, but I absolutely loved the Amazon Go
| stores. When I worked in the city, it _very_ quickly became part
| of my routine to stop by to pick up breakfast or a snack. Being
| able to walk in and walk out reduced an enormous amount of
| friction and I honestly wish this experiment worked.
| paxys wrote:
| The cashierless thing is fine, but is never going to be the
| reason people pick one store over another. The problem with
| Amazon Go is that they have been trying to target the "upscale
| convenience store" demographic which doesn't really exist. If
| getting rid of human labor lowers operating costs then why
| doesn't that reflect on the price tag on the shelf? Charging 2x
| what the CVS next door does defeats the purpose.
|
| Moreover, if having an Amazon account is a requirement for
| entering the store then they are effectively targeting people
| who'd rather order stuff online. Their focus shouldn't have been
| on Amazon users but the rest of the world.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > but is never going to be the reason people pick one store
| over another.
|
| speak for yourself. I commonly wait in line at the walgreens
| near me for longer than I was shopping for. If I had the choice
| between walgreens and the exact same store with cashierless
| tech I'd never go to walgreens.
| Symbiote wrote:
| There's the middle option. Last year my local discount
| supermarket replaced one checkout lane and a shelf of alcohol
| with 6 self-checkout machines.
|
| So far, I've never seen a queue for these, and they're quick
| to use.
| jarjoura wrote:
| The funny thing is, I never got the impression it had less
| employees than a typical CVS. They were just either in the back
| keeping the items stocked on the shelves, helping customers
| feel comfortable with the the idea they just walk out, or
| keeping an eye on theft.
|
| Actually, I'd be curious to know what the hiring situation
| looked like. Good employees would only stick around if they
| felt valued and paid fairly, otherwise they'd turn over. So
| you'd be left with the worst of the bunch. Since Amazon would
| have to find ways to keep retention up, they would likely have
| to pay market rate, or slightly above to attract willing
| people. That extra cost is definitely passed on to the
| customer.
|
| Disregarding the prices for the sake of argument, I still
| prefer CVS as it just feels easier to navigate. CVS accumulated
| a half century of tiny little details that Amazon Go just
| doesn't have figured out yet.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| Not sure if it's the same in the US but in Canada the
| convenience store is already inherently an upscale destination
| because of how much more everything costs compared to a
| supermarket.
| twelve40 wrote:
| Not sure about Canada, but in the US all convenience stores
| I've been to (except Amazon) sell a very narrow subset of
| goods found in a supermarket: mostly shitfood, cigarettes,
| booze and lottery tickets, maybe a small shelf with emergency
| supplies or a brown-looking banana. This attracts the type of
| crowd that enjoys consuming these goods.
|
| Amazon, as I agree with the parent, was neither here nor
| there, not as well stocked as the CVS, and too weird/too hip
| for a 7-11.
| dan_quixote wrote:
| > The cashierless thing is fine, but is never going to be the
| reason people pick one store over another.
|
| There is a Go-style Amazon Fresh very near my house. There are
| 4 other grocery stores roughly the same distance away. I find
| myself going to Amazon Fresh more often than not because of how
| easy it is to walk in, grab something, and walk out. They even
| put your shopping time on the emailed receipt - and I've made
| it through in less than a minute on more than one occasion.
| aendruk wrote:
| Amazon Fresh is my nearest grocery store but I bike two miles
| farther just to avoid it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If getting rid of human labor lowers operating costs then why
| doesn't that reflect on the price tag on the shelf
|
| Are they getting rid of human labor? Who is doing stocking, as
| needed cleanup, opening/closing, and overseeing all that?
|
| I'm guessing humans are doing that. And as a customer. It seems
| to be most of what the people who _also_ work as cashiers are
| doing, outsidd of a few rush periods where those other tasks,
| except emergency safety-necessary cleanup, aren't happening or
| are deferred.
|
| Seems to be its more likely Amazon is adding tech (which has a
| cost) which mainly serves to enable _less efficient use of
| human labor_.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Your comment just made something click for me.
|
| CVS (a drug store) by me has also gotten rid of cashiers...
| but for self-checkout. So have Royal Farms, a regional gas
| station/convenience store chain. At both places, if you
| really try, you can maybe get a cashier at a single human
| cashier counter, but it's normally unstaffed, and everyone
| directed to the multiple self check out stations.
|
| (I think USA readers know what i mean by self checkout
| station, but it's, where you can items yourself, and place
| them in bags yourself, and it yells at you if it doesn't
| detect the right weight of items placed in bags on a
| platform, and the whole thing is video taped).
|
| Amazon's stre isn't really an alternative to cashiers, it's
| an alternative to universal self-checkout that everyone else
| is moving to -- accelerated by the pandemic, but still
| relatively early on the adoption curve.
|
| I assume universal self-check-out does reduce staffing needs,
| which is why they are all moving to it?
|
| I suspect the Amazon cashierless stores won't really take off
| until all their competition is universal self-checkout.
| (Which may never happen in say NYC, where you have so many
| independent very-low-overhead bodega-type stores. But in most
| places, the competition is more like CVS or Royal Farms).
|
| Although I dunno, maybe I'm unusual in prefering human
| contact to self-checkout, something about the choices being
| self-checkout with a line or walk out of the store without
| checking out -- starts to make the Amazon option actually
| look like something you would want.
| Izkata wrote:
| > I assume universal self-check-out does reduce staffing
| needs, which is why they are all moving to it?
|
| My grocery store has 8 self-checkout stations overseen by
| one employee, and like 10 or so regular checkout lanes.
| Advantages of self-checkout:
|
| * Less employees to manage it (regular checkout usually has
| the cashier and a bagger, so we're looking at 1 employee vs
| 16 for the same number of open registers).
|
| * A single entry line, so if one customer gets stuck the
| rest of the customers behind them aren't just standing
| there waiting, so as long as you know how to use self-
| checkout it's going to be faster.
|
| * The conveyor belts on regular checkout are often pretty
| gross (dried sticky pop for example), while at self
| checkout you're putting your items directly into the bag
| after scanning them.
| jarjoura wrote:
| I too prefer human check-out lines.
|
| I always find that self-checkout system that everyone uses
| to be slower and clunky. The worst is at the grocery store
| where I have to search and find each item of produce, weigh
| it and then carefully place it in the bag. If any step in
| that flow goes slightly wrong, the system freezes and waits
| for an employee to come by and check what I'm doing.
|
| However, in the "fast casual" space, where I'm able to
| order food items on a touch screen system, or a mobile
| website, I have actually become much happier to do that.
| Sometimes it takes me a while to know what I want and
| having access to pictures or longer descriptions helps me
| on my journey.
|
| I'm not too worried about systems like completely replacing
| human contact though. I've seen similar attempts at sit-
| down restaurants and bars fail, likely because people go to
| those places expecting to interact with another human.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Self checkout is generally annoying in a few cases:
|
| * You use reusable bags. In general most systems I've
| used dislike when you put a bag in the area with the
| weighing things, so now I have to spend double the time
| moving items around because they can't just go directly
| into the bag
|
| * with fresh produce, the cashier will most likely have
| the most common items memorized and punch in the code
| without a hitch, whereas I have to navigate a clunky UI
| to figure out which kind of green onions to charge
|
| * anything involving an ID check is much faster; a human
| is legally required to be there to verify, and the
| cashier is already conveniently there, as opposed to a
| self-checkout register where I have to wait for somebody
| to come to me
| roughly wrote:
| I prefer human check-out lines because I don't
| particularly like having to do work for the store I'm
| shopping at.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| There are sit-down restaurants near me that now the only
| way to order is by scanning a QR code, which identifies
| your table, and ordering on a website. Someone drops your
| food off when it's ready, you've already paid with a
| credit card on the website. (You can add a tip).
|
| Started during the pandemic, pretty sure it's never going
| away. (The folks who made those apps bet right).
|
| I try to avoid them.
|
| But in the area of CVS (USA-style drug stores) or Royal
| Farms (chain convenience store, often attached to a gas
| station) -- as well as grocery stores in general -- self-
| check-out is already _predominant_ around me, and I also
| don 't see it going away. I suspect you're right it will
| never totally win in the restaurant space, but in the
| grocery store and convenience store space, it pretty much
| already has over here.
| philip1209 wrote:
| Amazon bought Whole Foods because there's massive overlap between
| Prime members and Whole Foods shoppers.
|
| Amazon bought One Medical because there's massive overlap between
| Prime Members and One Medical members.
|
| Look at convenience store shoppers and Prime members, and I don't
| think there's massive overlap between those customer bases.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Amazon Go seems incredibly overengineered. Why is this superior
| than a portable scanning plus toggleable RFIDs that disable items
| on scan and alarm gates? Cameras everywhere and computer vision
| seems overkill.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Cost. RFIDs have to be manufactured and I think those add up
| fast. The antenna can be made of etched copper, but with prices
| as they can be, it might aslo be in aluminum or conductive ink.
| That many tags on that many products day after day.. I would
| imagine the commodity prices would deeply impact their use.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Cameras everywhere and computer vision seems overkill._
|
| If the goal is cashierless, why not just have a store full of
| vending machines? You pick what you want, tap your card or
| phone, then you get it, then walk out.
| aflag wrote:
| Wouldn't that require people typing in the product id and
| making a payment several times if they want more than one
| thing?
| taeric wrote:
| "Vending machines you can walk into" is, amusingly, how I
| describe them to folks.
|
| There is a bit of a misunderstanding on staffing, though.
| There are still about as many people as you would need for a
| grocery store of that size, from what I remember. They just
| don't work the checkout line. So, you get all of the
| restocking and similar capabilities that machines just can't
| do, yet.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| That would be way less convenient than Amazon stores, having
| to pick what you want on a screen and then wait for it is
| much slower than just grabbing it off a shelf.
|
| At that point, a self checkout machine is probably better in
| every way.
| improv32 wrote:
| I'm guessing the longer term interest Amazon has is to use
| these stores to generate a dataset for their computer vision
| system, which they could license as a loss prevention
| technology to other stores
| endisneigh wrote:
| to be honest I'm surprised no one has funded such an effort.
| none_to_remain wrote:
| Doesn't sound like a very enjoyable experience for many kinds
| of shopping
| goodpoint wrote:
| Is it supposed to be enjoyable now??
| kube-system wrote:
| Vending machines have very strict packaging requirements.
| They simply can't handle a wide variety of products.
| bogomipz wrote:
| That hasn't been true in a very long time. A walk through
| any major airport shows otherwise. The Best Buy Express
| vending machine is 10 years old at this point and that is
| just one of many brands now that have similar offerings.
| See:
|
| https://blog.bestbuy.ca/tv-audio/headphones-tv-audio/best-
| bu...
|
| and
|
| https://thepointsguy.com/news/things-sold-airport-vending-
| ma...
| kube-system wrote:
| Those _are_ all uniform packages that meet strict
| requirements. Grocery stores, including Amazon
| cashierless stores, sell things like produce.
|
| Picking an apple, banana, or bunch of grapes off a shelf
| is more difficult for a machine. The items are not
| uniform in size or shape. For a lot of produce, no
| mechanized handling system exists for quantities smaller
| than a bushel.
| bogomipz wrote:
| If you look at the photo at the top of the first link you
| can very clearly see that almost every single row has
| different size package footprints, not only from row but
| even between packages in the same row. There is no
| uniformity present. Further from the second link, there
| is no uniformity from machine to machine which is
| fundamentally no different the variation and shelf
| configuration from from shelf to shelf or aisle to aisle
| in a traditional brick and mortar retail store.
| kube-system wrote:
| _Having a package_ is a significant uniformity. Having a
| conveyable shape is a significant uniformity. Produce is
| often packaged only in bushel quantities, which are not
| the quantities that shoppers purchase.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| This might generate more buyer friction[1]. Grabbing an item
| from a shelf is very easily reversible. But when you push a
| button for a vending machine to dispense something, it's not
| obvious how to undo that. So you will hesitate more.
|
| Also, when people change their minds about buying something,
| stores need to re-shelve that product. That's probably more
| labor intensive for vending machines than for regular
| shelves. For that matter, stocking it in the first place is
| probably more labor intensive.
|
| ---
|
| [1] Every obstacle you encounter, even a tiny inconvenience,
| will reduce the odds that you go through with a purchase.
| gorbypark wrote:
| The Decathlon (sporting equipment stores like REI or MEC)
| stores in Spain (and other countries, I'm sure) have RFID self
| checkout and it works way better than the type where you scan
| everything yourself. There's a big "basket", you put in your
| items, and they're just detected as they are put in. Then you
| just pay and go. They have the little barcode scanner guns for
| the bulky items that don't fit in the "basket".
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Uniqlo does the same, at least in the UK.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| I'm pretty sure some of the larger Uniqlo stores in the US
| also do this.
| chrischen wrote:
| In the midwest we have a giant store called Woodman's that just
| does low-tech self-checkout lanes and 24-hour stores... Self-
| checkout is just you doing the scanning and paying yourself...
| Aside from a high-precision scale and one worker for all of the
| self-checkout lanes (to assist in errors), it's more or less
| honor system that just works for the most part.
| leesalminen wrote:
| My mother-in-law operates the self-checkout lanes at a Kroger
| brand store in the midwest. The honor system definitely does
| not work there. Shoplifting is through the roof over the past
| couple years. It's gotten so bad that management is debating
| shutting off the self-checkout lanes.
|
| A few months ago she was pepper sprayed after confronting a
| shoplifter who had an entire cart of things, but only scanned
| and paid for 3.
|
| Then last month, someone came in and just wheeled out the
| entire tobacco shelving unit with a dolly.
|
| These are just a couple egregious examples. We hear other
| shoplifting stories from her every week.
|
| The police don't respond to shoplifting calls anymore, and
| the thieves know it. Employees are now instructed to not
| confront shoplifters in any way after she got pepper sprayed.
|
| It's a total free for all. My mother-in-law estimates the
| theft to be $10,000 per day at her store.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| >Then last month, someone came in and just wheeled out the
| entire tobacco shelving unit with a dolly.
|
| And how would 'shutting off the self-checkout lanes' solve
| that?
| chrischen wrote:
| That's not really a self-checkout problem though is it. I
| mean, SF has stores that don't have self-checkout but the
| thieves that come in and wheel out a tobacco shelving unit
| are not taking advantage of "self-checkout"... they are
| taking advantage of the fact that 1) there is no proper
| security and 2) the police don't respond.
|
| My point is that anywhere that unmanned stores with cameras
| can work, so would self-checkout.
| harvey9 wrote:
| I think there's an important difference between unmanned
| and self checkout which you missed from the post you
| replied to: the person who scans a few items but steals
| others at a self checkout. In a no checkout store you
| already identified yourself in order to get inside and
| the store knows what you picked up and took out.
| thakoppno wrote:
| > $10,000 per day at her store.
|
| That seems intolerably high but I've never worked a day in
| a grocery store. Do grocery stores generate enough revenue
| to sustain? Fifty two-hundred dollar carts of cash is a lot
| to let go.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Looking up statistics, shrinkage rates at a grocery store
| are typically 2-3%. Theft appears to be about 1/3 of
| shrinkage (food spoilage is a bigger cause than
| shoplifting), so about 1% of revenue amounts to theft on
| average.
|
| The larger supermarkets seem to pull in on the order
| $100-150k/day in revenues, with the median half of that.
|
| So... yeah, the numbers don't add up. If it's $10k/day,
| even at an extremely large store, that's 6-7% theft rate.
| Given that grocers aren't high-margin, that's stark
| enough to wipe out any revenue. $1k/day theft rate is a
| more reasonable estimation.
| devmor wrote:
| The anecdote is almost certainly made up nonsense.
| Grocery stores are incredibly low-margin businesses.
| flangola7 wrote:
| A lot of people seem to have been raised with this
| attitude that pretty theft from a ruthless retail
| corporation is some kind of unthinkable sin.
|
| My mom and dad regularly lifted from wally world to make
| sure our family had enough. Always taught my siblings and
| I that stealing from regular people or small
| local/ethical businesses is wrong, but against enormous
| manifestations of brazen greed it was was open season. As
| I grow older and more crotchety old person assertive I
| realize it's more true than ever, and much more even than
| when I was in need of baby food 40 years ago.
|
| I miss you dad.
| davidgay wrote:
| > A lot of people seem to have been raised with this
| attitude that pretty theft from a ruthless retail
| corporation is some kind of unthinkable sin.
|
| You're not actually stealing from the "ruthless retail
| corporation". You are stealing from the customers who
| don't steal.
| flangola7 wrote:
| Incorrect, it is stealing from the retail corporation.
| [deleted]
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Trusting customers to key in the correct product code when
| using the scale is foolish though. Supposedly there's a store
| out there that sold more bananas in weight through the self-
| checkout than they had shipped in.
| zwkrt wrote:
| The one thing about sushi and peanuts is that they both
| have a weight...
| aflag wrote:
| I find it nice that you don't have to scan anything, use a
| shopping cart or even move items from one place to another.
| Just grab it from the shelf, put in your backpack and go. Sure
| you have to scan your phone when you come in but you'd have to
| do that when you pay anyway.
|
| So, it's much more convenient, you'd never be embarrassed
| because you forgot to scan something or the scan didn't work
| properly. Security guards won't be profiling you as you walk
| around. I find it great.
|
| It provides value that less sophisticated solutions don't. So,
| I'd consider it well engineered.
| codeddesign wrote:
| I wonder if this is a store issue or following in Walmart's
| footsteps due to high crime and theft in those areas..
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| I used to visit one of the NYC the Go stores daily until covid
| happened. It was cute and surgically clean, worked wonderfully,
| and their inventory management was much better then CVS and Duane
| Reade which often sell out of things and have empty shelves for
| days.
|
| But nobody ever went there - no matter what time of the day I
| went, there would be one person doing inventory and stocking, two
| people standing by to help people install the Go app on their
| phones and explain the concept, and myself. Occasionally one
| other person being helped to install the app.
|
| I think the issue was that everything there except Coca-Cola and
| Arizona tea cost significantly more then any of the surrounding
| stores, and if you hate quinoa you were SOL because it was in
| everything except drinks and sushi. If you are paying two thirds
| of your income or more on a Manhattan apartment you probably
| couldn't afford to eat routinely from the Go store. Then Covid
| happened.
|
| I really hate the guy who decided to put quinoa in everything.
| Because of that I only ever bought drinks there.
| phphphphp wrote:
| I don't know if they've evolved their approach, if my local
| store is an outlier, or if yours was an outlier, but I live
| near an Amazon store and go in a few times per week: the
| experience you describe doesn't match my experience. Over maybe
| 100 visits: there's usually a few people in there at minimum,
| the food is pretty good (as far as convenience food store goes)
| and prices are the same as similar stores. I sometimes have to
| dance through a crowd of people struggling to get in.
|
| I wouldn't say the concept is a huge success because... it's a
| convenience store, and location is far more important than
| anything else, so there's a pretty low ceiling on what a
| convenience store can achieve beyond being in a good location,
| but it is certainly convenient.
|
| (As far as business goes, they seem like a cute experiment that
| has escaped the pointless novelty stage but hasn't reached the
| industry disruption stage ('cause there isn't one) and so is
| floating aimlessly in the middle space where they probably can
| just about justify keeping them around.)
| novok wrote:
| For a convenience store, they were missing items you'd find
| reliably in 7-11s, like charging cables or headphones, at
| least when i asked the guy at the front.
| animex wrote:
| If I were an automated store that relied on a charged
| mobile phone I wouldn't sell charging cables either! :-)
| grogenaut wrote:
| The food was good quality and very fast. It was basically a
| micro cafeteria for my building. I went there daily for the
| soda and sushi or salad until we had our catered lunches
| back. This is the Stewart location in Seattle... Which
| there isn't much food around right nowand is across the
| street from my office
| [deleted]
| nivenkos wrote:
| When I was in Seattle it was pretty cheap lunch option.
|
| Although Whole Foods had better food for the same price tbh.
| emodendroket wrote:
| If you're charging way more than surrounding stores going all-
| in on quinoa seems like it's a sound strategy, or maybe would
| have been one in the the recent past.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The food was just really, really bad. The ones near me stocked
| a bunch of pre made meals and they were all horrible. I can't
| wait for this tech to get into my grocery store, but the
| convenience stores were not it.
| sammalloy wrote:
| My intuition tells me this is the problem. I moved away from
| purchasing any type of grab and go food about ten years ago
| and I think a lot of consumers have joined me.
| twelve40 wrote:
| it might never make it, depends on where you live. where I
| live, they were banned because must accept cash, and they
| can't sell things like booze because id checks, so you end up
| having a bunch of humans around anyway, which kind of defeats
| the purpose of installing hundreds of cameras and other
| expensive systems.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Automated cash registers exist and are widely used, and are
| much simpler technologically than a scanner-less checkout.
| Amazon is choosing not to use them.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Isn't the whole point of Amazon generally, and these stores
| specifically in not having staff, that it's supposed to be
| cheaper? I think you've pinpointed the reason it failed, but I
| can't imagine why they thought it was going to succeed at those
| prices.
| imglorp wrote:
| Maybe they were thinking about the immediate gratification
| cognitive bias. You might see the price on the shelf as you
| take each item from the shelf, but that doesn't translate to
| a total expense until you actually pay the Amazon bill at the
| end of the month.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if that were the long-term goal but
| in reality it was not yet cheaper. Automation often proves
| more difficult than one would expect.
| oblio wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1319/
|
| This should be branded on the forehead of every CEO of a
| company that promises full self driving capabilities for
| cars before 2030 and cryptocurrency mass adoption, also
| before 2030.
| __derek__ wrote:
| How did it fail? They just announced that eight stores were
| permanently closed after having been closed indefinitely, one
| of which was inside of an Amazon office that shut down last
| year.[1] It looks like they still have 29 Go stores open
| nationwide.[2]
|
| [1]: https://www.geekwire.com/2023/amazon-closing-eight-
| amazon-go...
|
| [2]: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011
| grogenaut wrote:
| I'm also seeing this tech in some airports in basically a
| linear contained store. Walk in, walk down the tunnel grab
| what you want, walk out. Seemed very efficient and airport
| appropriate
| asveikau wrote:
| This reminds me that the San Francisco ones, if I remember
| correctly, are in a part of town that's been famously
| devoid of foot traffic since the pandemic.
|
| San Francisco might be receptive to the concept, but it
| would have to be close to where people live, rather than
| where office workers used to go.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| The only one I know in SF was down in the FiDi, and I
| can't imagine that area had much traffic during the
| pandemic, and I question how much it has now.
| rsynnott wrote:
| If you have a US-wide convenience store chain with a multi-
| billion-dollar company behind it, and you have 29 stores
| after six years, well... I mean, it's not exactly a stand-
| out success, is it?
| jedberg wrote:
| > Isn't the whole point of Amazon generally, and these stores
| specifically in not having staff, that it's supposed to be
| cheaper?
|
| I'm pretty sure the goal is to have a higher profit margin
| than competitors by leveraging technology, not lower prices.
| 13of40 wrote:
| I'm not sure it actually failed. These stores work by having
| AI track customer actions via camera, and over the last
| couple of years they've gotten a ton of data and domain
| knowledge from them. It isn't hard to imagine that's been
| leveraged in whatever's watching the cameras at Whole Foods.
| jarjoura wrote:
| Although they've added self-checkout lanes to Whole Foods,
| human interaction is in its DNA and you pay for that
| premium.
|
| Amazon is only able to capture your order details if you
| use the app at checkout.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The point of spending this massive amount of money on an
| automated store is to recoup that investment by opening
| lots of automated stores and make money in volume, taking
| advantage of your lower labor costs.
|
| If they don't actually open at least hundreds of these then
| they've thrown away massive amounts of money on R&D they'll
| never get back, and the data they did accumulate isn't even
| particularly useful as it's in the context of a type of
| store they're not running at scale.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| Cheaper for Amazon, yes. Why would they externalize the
| profit? Just maximizing extraction by eliminating the few
| remaining local jobs.
| pas wrote:
| It could have been intentionally set to a more expensive
| price level, to manage the number of people using it. (To
| manage the "load" on the product development team, because if
| 2% of all users encounter some problems - or otherwise need
| support - then it's not scalable.)
| bestnameever wrote:
| They also recently opened cashierless Whole Food locations
| that use the same technology. I would not be surprised if
| some of these Gp stores were never intended to stay open but
| rather existed as a concept and to test ideas.
| vhold wrote:
| My hunch is that the store wasn't meant to be particularly
| popular with lots of customers, it was meant to demonstrate
| technologies they wanted to sell to businesses.
|
| https://aws.amazon.com/just-walk-out/
|
| https://aws.amazon.com/one/
| desiarnezjr wrote:
| They've employed a "Amazon is the first and best customer"
| for most of the services they've launched. Amazon.com / AWS
| is an example.
| draw_down wrote:
| > nobody ever went there
|
| As a shopper, sounds great! Not hard to understand why they're
| closing, though.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Putting quinoa in everything and assuming the addressable
| market had more disposable income seems like one of the signs
| of the last bubble.
| Spivak wrote:
| Why are people so weird about food? What about quinoa made it
| associated with rich yuppies? If you didn't already know you
| would probably assume the main consumers would be dudes who
| want their chicken and carb to have even more protein.
| rsynnott wrote:
| It become quite expensive for a few years, as it became
| popular at a greater rate than production increased. Bulk
| price seems to be down again now, though.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Food choice being a proxy and signal for class/culture is
| nothing new. You'd be hard pressed to find a cultural
| tradition that doesn't speak to it.
|
| While everyone needs sustenance, there are often several
| adequate choices about how to get it and making those
| choices become a way of communicating to others. And
| communicating is an defining and seemingly valuable part of
| being human.
|
| It's not really weird and it's not going anywhere.
| kazinator wrote:
| Consumption of quinoa doesn't demonstrate your food
| choice as much as that you follow quaint trends.
| sammalloy wrote:
| I share the same concerns about quinoa as OP. My guess is
| that it has to be made and served fresh, and these stores
| have it sitting on shelves for days at a time and it
| tastes funny after a while.
| asveikau wrote:
| Quinoa specifically: it's foreign sounding, so people were
| unfamiliar with it, and it was touted for being more
| nutritious than things like rice.
|
| So, novelty and cool factor, plus appeal to those looking
| for healthy options; some overlap with the faddish nature
| of trends in healthy eating.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Because nobody really ate it in the US and then it was
| everywhere it was a fad among rich yuppies. Yeah peasants
| ate it in South America (there were even newspaper
| editorials chastising yuppies for denying poor people their
| quinoa supply by eating it for frivolous reasons) but so
| what?
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| > What about quinoa made it associated with rich yuppies?
|
| poor people use wheat etc.
| baq wrote:
| Oh the irony. Rye was poor people's cereal back then,
| wheat was for the rich.
| urfullofsht wrote:
| [dead]
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It's not ironic. Agricultural methods have changed over
| the millennia and as a result the relative price of many
| foods has gone way down. See also white rice.
| baq wrote:
| I don't disagree. It's the fads and narratives that come
| alongside which are... looking for the right word here -
| dumb?
| capableweb wrote:
| Lobster was once for prisoners and slaves or a poor mans
| food, while nowadays it's almost exactly the opposite.
| It'll be hard to find a prisoner or slave that gets to
| eat lobster.
| philwelch wrote:
| That's mostly because they didn't really know how to
| prepare it back then.
| giaour wrote:
| Oysters were poor people food in the same era, and like
| now, many people ate them raw. It has less to do with
| culinary trends and much more to do with the relative
| productivity of the lobster fishery. (In recent years,
| the lobster fishery has been really productive, but
| prices have been pretty sticky[0].)
|
| Mark Kurlansky's _The Big Oyster_ has some great primary
| source research on the social status of eating shellfish
| through the years.
|
| [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/us/in-maine-
| fishermen-str...
| kazinator wrote:
| I'm not aware that quinoa is expensive. Some rich yuppies
| have the _time_ for following lame food /health/lifestyle
| trends. However, doing that is lame at any income level.
| A proper bro dude will never eat yogurts sprinkled with
| acai berries and quinoa or whatever crap.
| passwordqwe wrote:
| There's reports of prisoners complaining about the torture
| of being fed salmon all the time, because it used to be
| common food. People signal their class and status through
| everything, also through food.
| cstejerean wrote:
| I used Blue Apron for a while and got an unreasonable
| amount of salmon for some reason. It's been almost 6
| years and I can still barely eat salmon after that. So I
| can definitely understand where the prisoners were coming
| from on this one.
| novok wrote:
| Salmon not prepared, handled or stored properly or not
| served fresh can taste pretty bad and smell pretty bad
| compared to other meats. Seafood in general goes bad fast
| compared to beef or pork for example.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| This will be huge rant but as someone who worked right next to
| one of these in San Francisco I didn't use it because it was
| obnoxiously annoying.
|
| Speaking as someone technically inclined who writes code for a
| living, I don't want to have to scan a QR code or use an App to
| go through some weird robot gate to buy a thing from the
| automated store. And that's (me), not the average Joe Blow who
| can't even figure out how to open the calculator app on his
| phone.
|
| It was a terrible idea from the start and 10x more convenient
| to walk into a corner market, grab a drink and hand the cashier
| a few $1's from my wallet. All this super advanced technology
| and it has zero real world benefit or time savings for normal
| human beings.
| [deleted]
| hgsgm wrote:
| What is quinoa put in?
| sammalloy wrote:
| Mostly grab and go foods like salads. It's terrible just like
| the OP said.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > two people standing by to help people install the Go app on
| their phones and explain the concept
|
| That feels like a problem with the concept, really. That's one
| more than you need for conventional automatic checkouts.
| boh wrote:
| I think "nobody ever went there" is difficult to gauge since
| most purchases are very quick. Typical purchase would take
| 30-60 seconds for me to make. Since people are quick in/quick
| out it seems less people shop there.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Talanes wrote:
| I'm a smoker who worked next to one of these stores, so I
| spent a good deal of time on the curb outside. I'd see
| multiple people enter and exit the CVS anytime I was out
| there, but I'm not sure I ever saw anyone do more than stand
| outside the Amazon Go trying to figure out what it was before
| moving on.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| My experience as a non local is that the stores are impossible to
| enter with an international Amazon account. The Austrian app
| store only gives you the amazon.de app which doesn't have the
| code to enter the store.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| _Despite these closures,the company will continue to open new
| Amazon Go stores,_
|
| _When asked why Amazon has decided to shutter the eight stores
| in Seattle, New York City and San Francisco, the spokesperson
| said that like with any retailer, Amazon periodically assesses
| its portfolio of stores and makes optimization decisions along
| the way._
|
| Theft
| themitigating wrote:
| Except there will still be 7 stores in NYC and they didn't say
| theft.
| cdibona wrote:
| I went to one of these last year and it's was basically a gas
| station convenience store without the gas or convenience. Poorly
| stocked, weirdly expensive, and, well, shabby.
| fmajid wrote:
| So they are closing all 4 stores in San Francisco. Makes sense
| given how downtown where all 4 were has turned into a ghost town,
| and the generalized lawlessness and pillage with impunity by
| shoplifters can't have helped.
| kentosi wrote:
| Slightly misleading title. They're closing 8 of their stores
| across NYC, SF, etc, and this is after they just opened a few
| more across the US.
| bogomipz wrote:
| From the article:
|
| >"The retailer also opened a number of locations last year in
| Southern California. As of last month, Amazon operated 31 Go
| stores in total."
|
| >"With these closures, the company will have 23 Go stores, the
| spokesperson said."
|
| That's a loss of 8 stores.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| It's a loss of 8 Go stores, but Amazon has been ramping up
| the Amazon Fresh grocery stores over the last 2 years. There
| are 33 Amazon Fresh stores from my count.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh are two distinct and different
| retail entities. The subject of the post is specifically
| Amazon Go. That being said, on the most recent earnings
| call Amazon also announced that they were "pausing" the
| rollout of Fresh stores.
|
| "We've decided over the last year or so that we're not
| going to expand the physical Fresh doors until we have that
| equation with differentiation and economic value that we
| like, but we're optimistic that we're going to find that in
| 2023," [1]
|
| [1] https://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-
| financial/amazon-halt...
| buzzert wrote:
| > after it opened a location in Puyallup, Washington that
| follows its larger suburban-focused format.
|
| Sounds like they're focusing on the suburban market instead.
| Related to rising crime in the cities maybe?
| sosodev wrote:
| They built one of these near us (years ago) and never opened
| it. They recently announced that it was going to remain
| unopened indefinitely.
| cavisne wrote:
| And the 2 "closed" in seattle have been boarded up for some
| time, they are in an area that became even higher crime during
| Covid and never really recovered.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| More accurately: they are in an area that dropped to zero
| foot traffic during covid and never really recovered. I think
| the literal number of people that go past the store on 6th is
| lower than the number of crimes committed in most areas.
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| The actual title is "Amazon Go closing _8_ of its c-stores, "
| the HN post title is misleading
| crazygringo wrote:
| And according to Google Maps there are 9 Amazon Go stores in
| NYC right now, so this would _still leave 7_.
|
| Which is just business as usual, figuring out which stores in
| which locations turn out to be most profitable.
| philistine wrote:
| You're right, but it's weird for such a tech-focused company
| to close stores in such a fashion, because we're used to the
| giant margins of tech. Apple has never closed that many
| stores that quickly.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Apple stores are famous for being some of the most
| profitable stores mankind has ever created. And there
| aren't that many of them.
|
| These Amazon stores are just local convenience stores.
| They're selling candy bars. And Amazon is a much more
| "experimental" company than Apple -- they launch and shut
| down stuff all the time to iterate and learn. This isn't
| about penny-pinching or margins, it's about finding
| product-market fit.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| That's a completely misleading title then.
| gowld wrote:
| HN removes numbers from titles, as an anti-clickbait tactic,
| but it leads to errors like this.
| bilsbie wrote:
| The right way to do this would be the concept of a giant vending
| machine. Keep the customers out of the store and bring the items
| to them.
| ElFitz wrote:
| So... Amazon?
| joezydeco wrote:
| Do you remember Service Merchandise?
| mikeflynn wrote:
| They just opened an Amazon Go store in LA (Woodland Hills) at the
| beginning of the year. From my unscientific sample of personal
| visits it seems to be getting decent traffic, is well run, and is
| a much nicer place to quickly grab something on a walk over a gas
| station or a market that only takes cash.
|
| For whatever reason there's also a Whole Foods and an Amazon
| Fresh near by as well. Woodland Hills is well stocked with Amazon
| retail!
| nomy99 wrote:
| I shopped at their location at 30 rock. It was a mixed bag
| feeling. I was in awe of the technology, but at the same time I
| felt like I was being overly observed like in a prison.. I never
| went back, even though I work in the building.
| alden5 wrote:
| it's interesting yea, they keep track of what you pick up and
| put back and sell that data to the company of the product you
| decided not to buy, its an opt out program thats really hard to
| find.
| kirykl wrote:
| If you don't disallow Bluetooth lots of retailers track
| secretly that way, using beacons
| crazygringo wrote:
| In basically every retail store, and especially
| grocery/convenience stores, you are being observed by security
| cameras at literally every second. In every aisle.
|
| This has been the case for decades. It's how they catch
| shoplifters.
|
| I rather like the fact it can be used for customer convenience
| now, rather than just punitively.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| In typical stores (e.g. Walmart, Target, etc), most of those
| cameras housings don't contain cameras.
|
| The main issue isn't that cameras are expensive, it is that
| monitoring that many cameras is expensive/impractical, and
| automated theft detection systems are still in their infancy.
| So they just target high value/common areas, and rely on
| deterrents (like people believing they have a lot of cameras,
| off-duty cops at the door, and PR around some super secret
| new technology).
|
| Quite seriously: Stores really need to look into vending
| machines for certain items. In particular with how advanced
| Gift Card Theft-Clone-Return Activation fraud is. Thieves
| have message-boards not dissimilar to this where they can
| share "pro-tips," and things have become quite sophisticated.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > In particular with how advanced Gift Card Theft-Clone-
| Return Activation fraud is
|
| Completely self-inflicted problem, happy to see such
| schadenfreude unfold. There's already a gift card that's
| pretty much immune to fraud (or at the very least makes
| fraud the bank's problem): _money_.
|
| Gift cards are horrible waste and scam and ultimately only
| benefit the store at the expense of the buyer or the
| recipient of the card - you're turning good, actual cash,
| in something that's less valuable because now it has usage
| restrictions on them.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _most of those cameras housings don 't contain cameras_
|
| Do you have a source for that?
|
| Because at my local grocery store for example, above the
| customer service area they have a whole wall of TV's
| showing the live camera feeds. They're all working.
|
| My local convenience store has the live TV's too, by the
| cashier.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Because at my local grocery store for example, above
| the customer service area they have a whole wall of TV's
| showing the live camera feeds.
|
| Right, but is it recording, and does the camera feed go
| anywhere other than just up to the little monitor showing
| you the video?
|
| It's like the recording they play once in a while over
| the PA that says "security to section 3" or whatever.
| It's theater. Because actual security costs real money
| and grocery stores are tight margins.
|
| I mostly ignore such things, but Home Depot annoys me. I
| guess they have a more significant problem with theft,
| because some aisles have cameras with monitors and a bell
| that goes DING-DONG when you walk by, just to remind you
| they think you're a criminal. A few miles away there's
| even a Home Depot that has a portable tower-of-cameras
| out in the parking lot with bright lights and flashing
| blue lights on it, so you can further feel like a
| criminal. Luckily my local location doesn't feel the need
| to do that.
| hotstickyballs wrote:
| That's not evidence that all the camera housings are
| populated. You're only seeing the ones with live feeds.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > Do you have a source for that?
|
| I know people who work there.
|
| Your average Walmart has hundreds of camera housings.
| Every single aisle has a couple. The amount of cabling
| alone to populate them all simply doesn't exist (as you
| can often see, it is an open-box ceiling), and monitoring
| that many cameras is impractical (in particular for a
| store staffed at BARELY sustainable levels).
|
| Just look at how understaffed the floor of these stores
| are, then ask yourself why they'd have a disproportionate
| number of loss-prevention staff working relative to the
| floor staff. A big store absolutely will have tens of
| cameras, but even all those may only have a single person
| for all (or zero persons depending on shifts/staffing).
|
| That being said: Some stores have legitimately rolled out
| facial recognition to pick up known thieves as they enter
| the store. But that requires four-ish cameras and the
| technology is pretty turn-key.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| [dead]
| wiseleo wrote:
| There are systems to follow the subject. I configured my
| work's cameras to show a few key cameras on the live
| feed, but several more are quietly recording. When we
| review the footage, I can follow a subject across my
| entire array of cameras. I can track someone from the
| point they enter the parking lot with a plate camera.
|
| I had facial recognition in a nightclub over a decade
| ago. Modern cameras' capabilities are scary.
| b3morales wrote:
| > monitoring that many cameras is impractical
|
| Regardless of how many there are, I believe the point is
| not to monitor them live but to have recordings if the
| store wants to bring charges for something.
| fmajid wrote:
| From what I've read of Amazon Go's technology, literally
| every square inch of ceiling in them is occupied by some
| piece of technology to implement the cashierless checkout.
| bentcorner wrote:
| If you go into one of the Amazon grocery stores there's
| cameras literally every foot, possibly less. Way more than a
| traditional grocery store.
|
| I don't know what exactly Amazon is trying to do though.
| Their prices aren't competitive and the "don't mess around
| with checking out" benefits aren't exactly a huge time saver,
| self checkout is a solved problem and doesn't take a ton of
| time.
|
| Not being able to immediately see your receipt on exit is
| also a big downside - they charged me for something I put
| back on the shelf which makes me not want to go there either,
| I need to remember to check my receipt at some unknown later
| point in time and try to match it up with stuff that has
| probably already been put away.
|
| All around IMO it's a worse grocery store to go to.
| tchock23 wrote:
| I was on a jury for larceny from a Target. The footage they
| showed from so many points around the store made me feel
| creeped out with every store I go into now.
| mozman wrote:
| Target has a very impressive security system. There is a
| uuid on your receipt that can be used to track your
| movement within the store beginning from when you walked in
|
| They also have a top forensic lab that some smaller law
| enforcement units rely on, and they do it for free!
|
| https://corporate.target.com/article/2012/02/an-
| unexpected-c...
| joezydeco wrote:
| Target's procedure is that they don't bother with small
| shoplifters, _but_ they track the value of the items
| stolen. Once you hit the felony limit, they go into
| action and provide all the evidence to law enforcement.
| [deleted]
| gretch wrote:
| I don't think this is true.
|
| In high school my friend was caught and arrested for
| stealing a bottle of luxury cosmetic shampoo (dumb
| teenager brain). Not cheap but certainly not felony limit
| satvikpendem wrote:
| They track how much you've shoplifted over time and once
| it hits felony level amounts, then they charge you. From
| the below articles:
|
| > _" [If] you take a couple hundred dollars worth of
| stuff, they're gonna be like 'Bye gorgeous. You have a
| great day.'"_
|
| > _However, the self-identified ex-employee said that
| there is a catch - if the shoplifting becomes a pattern,
| Target allegedly takes action, as they track stolen
| items._
|
| > _Hannah claimed that the company waits "until you're
| thousands and thousands of dollars in debt" to "put you
| behind bars."_
|
| > _This would generally make the stealing a felony-level
| charge._
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/target-thefts-
| shoplifti...
|
| https://www.the-sun.com/news/6797941/target-employee-
| theft-s...
| justeleblanc wrote:
| Larceny goes to a jury where you live?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It's a criminal charge, so yes, according to the Sixth
| Amendment it could go to a jury trial in any
| jurisdiction.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Maybe I've been living in California for too long, but
| I'm kind of shocked/confused at how someone stealing from
| a Target would go all the way to a jury trial. Surely the
| amount stolen was less than the cost of the police's
| time, the legal system, judges, attorneys, clerks,
| jurors, and so on. It would be more cost effective to
| simply have the local government reimburse Target for the
| loss.
| jrockway wrote:
| That's not really how criminal justice works. If someone
| murders you, no money is lost. They aren't trying to
| figure out who killed you so they'll pay what you would
| have paid in taxes. They investigate and prosecute
| murders to discourage murder.
|
| The same is mostly true for every crime. If you steal
| something of value and the insurance company gets
| reimbursed, that's just a bonus.
| explaininjs wrote:
| In CA, it's not shoplifting but rather "grand theft"
| after $950. Based on [1], target tracks you throughout
| the "shoplifting" to accumulate total losses and only
| goes after you once you hit "grand theft", where
| presumably the cost/benefit works out in their favor.
|
| This lines up with what I've heard on TikTok and from in
| person conversations with kleptomaniacs. (It's not
| uncommon for folks to go on thieving sprees throughout a
| mall. They think they're getting off scott-free, but are
| being secretly followed by security. Once they hit $950
| the big guns come out.)
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35031393
| crazygringo wrote:
| Preventing crime isn't about cost-effectiveness in
| individual instances, it's about deterrence. Which is
| necessary for safety, but which is also "cost-effective"
| when you account for all the crime that has been
| deterred, if you tried to measure that in dollars
| somehow.
|
| But people also have rights, including the right to a
| trial with a jury of peers. Innocent people can be
| wrongly accused of stealing large amounts. It's worth the
| expense of a jury trial to force the prosecution to
| justify their case and give the innocent the change to
| defend themselves. And cost effectiveness plays no role
| here.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| And yet everything is now behind locked glass at the
| pharmacy. I doubt the cameras are that good at catching
| shoplifters.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| The liability equation is _massively_ different on the
| pharmacy side where there are strict penalties involved
| with distributing controlled OTC meds even, let alone
| prescriptions and controlled prescriptions.
|
| Nobody is going to come down and slap a fine on you for
| having a dozen cameras stolen. They very certainly will if
| that cough syrup wasn't distributed correctly.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| The kinds of things that are locked up aren't even OTC
| meds that could be used for illicit purposes. We're
| talking about antacids and COVID tests too.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| If they already lock up regulated medicine, then it costs
| them next to nothing to add high-value items to it. They
| have the space and the staff to handle it already.
| harvey9 wrote:
| There's a tipping point where it's cheaper to employ staff
| to get stuff out of a cabinet than to catch all the people
| stealing.
| tiedieconderoga wrote:
| Sure, but it's very strange when that threshhold seems to
| be in the $2-4 range.
|
| Some US cities, you show up for a conference or
| something, walk to the corner store across from your
| hotel, and find that all of the toothbrushes and bags of
| trail mix are locked away.
|
| How little are they paying these people who are doing the
| unlocking, that it's worthwhile for such small items?
| seattletarget wrote:
| You recently shopped at the Seattle Target by the market,
| too?
| harvey9 wrote:
| I'd speculate they are doing some balance of what gets
| stolen the most, and price. But I'm in the UK and I
| mostly see higher priced items like brand name razor
| blades getting locked away.
| mariojv wrote:
| One example of this from a quick search:
| https://privacysos.org/blog/target-is-really-really-into-
| sur...
|
| More information on some of Target's loss prevention
| techniques: https://www.businessinsider.com/target-employees-
| say-store-d... (Archive link: https://archive.is/wRol8)
|
| I'd heard that they wait until losses reach above the felony
| threshold before prosecuting, documenting what particular
| individuals are stealing. Several videos about this had gone
| viral, and I'd heard about it from a friend but never looked
| into it until now.
|
| From the Business Insider interview with several anonymous
| employees, though, the intent of the surveillance is more to
| catch high volume thieves, employees stealing, and career
| shoplifters, rather than folks stealing a few necessities. I
| could see most of their prosecutions rising to the felony
| threshold because of this tactic, since high volume is likely
| to cross the dollar amount for a felony. In other words, the
| intent is not being punitive for the sake of it, but actual
| loss prevention.
|
| I tend to believe the anonymous sources, because they have
| nothing to gain from talking anonymously with the reporter,
| versus the influencers who are trying to accumulate
| followers. It's not a Les Miserables type situation.
|
| A lot of the commenters on one particular video linked from
| the article seem to be pro-shoplifting, even without need, so
| there is to some extent people believing what they want to
| believe:
| https://www.tiktok.com/@jodessy/video/6899962247590743301
|
| Examples:
|
| "All I'm hearing is I have $499 in store credit" - 1700 likes
|
| "I'm sorry but what?? I've stolen CELL PHONES from target" -
| 242 likes
|
| "I def stole over $20k including but not limited to laptops,
| jbl speakers, ... only got probation so jokes on them!" - 103
| likes
|
| Anyway, I just thought I'd share this even though it's only
| tangentially related to the story since I'd just previously
| believed the viral rumor without really looking into it.
| luckylion wrote:
| The constant filming from every angle is what makes me even
| more confused when you need to personally tell employees that
| something is broken somewhere, or the queue for the cash
| register is miles long, or some sales point isn't staffed and
| has people waiting. Everything is being watched, why aren't
| they reacting proactively?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Cameras film, people watch. They're not willing to pay more
| cashiers, they're certainly not willing to pay a bunch of
| people to stare at cameras all day. Instead it's zero, one
| or two people. They have enough on their plate just
| virtually following visually suspicious people through the
| store.
|
| edit: I include zero because a lot of it is seeing that a
| "suspicious type" has entered the store, and running to the
| back room to watch their every move until they leave.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| [dead]
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Large corporations assign people roles. The person watching
| the cameras is there to detect shoplifting. They have no
| stake in the success of the store.
|
| If you want to see a shopkeeper care about that sort of
| thing, patronize an owner-operated small business.
| luckylion wrote:
| I don't know about small, but the store I usually shop at
| is owner-operated (though part of a owner-coop in
| Germany), but they don't do it.
|
| I get the point of shoplifting watchers not caring about
| queues, but am I just naive that this should be easy
| enough to solve with tech? You have lots of images from
| multiple directions, you know how the store looks empty,
| you can probably do a decent-enough image discovery to
| find out roughly where people are. If there are 15 people
| in front of the checkout, ring a small bell somewhere and
| have a person check whether it's time to open another
| checkout.
|
| I can shop, scan the products while I walk through the
| shop with my phone, pay with the app and open a gate to
| bet let out with my purchased goods, but the computer
| can't use the camera signal to figure out how where
| people are?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The tech is redundant. The people working in the store
| can see with their eyes how long the queue is. They don't
| need a machine to ring a bell. They have a brain.
|
| But not an incentive to use it.
| kube-system wrote:
| Because the person watching is performing a specific task,
| not every task.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Is there, anywhere, a list of the exact stores that will be
| closed?
| mandeepj wrote:
| There's one in Chicago downtown as well. I guess the Stores
| failed because it lacked warmth and any inviting vibe. I know it
| sounds ironic.
| superfunny wrote:
| I visited the store in the Ogilvie Train Station when it first
| opened and, honestly, I felt like I was inside a vending
| machine, given how everything is stocked on the shelves.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| I have actually had a very positive experience with cashier-less
| shopping - albeit not with Amazon Go and in the EU. As of now,
| it's been heavily benefited from never having to wait in a line
| (because the vast majority of people will still opt for the
| cashier lanes) but I actually found the UX (which in my case
| always included scanning of products like a cashier would)
| actually quite delightful and surprisingly never had any issues.
|
| I can totally see this scaling quite nicely, considering stores
| will have to employ less personal, even if it it requires some
| additional store space, and I would be mildly surprised if
| cashiers were still a thing in 10 years. It increasingly seems
| like a job no one should be doing, in a combination of "bad for
| your health", "a waste of of human resources in a world where
| they are becoming rapidly scarce" and "boring" and I don't think
| they will, in the not so far future.
|
| What are other experiences?
| rpadovani wrote:
| In Italy, it has been years, if not decades, that in a chain of
| large supermarkets there is a system where, when you enter the
| supermarket, you can pick up a barcode reader.
|
| While you are doing your shopping, you scan your products. At
| the exit, you scan a QR code to end the shopping, you pay, and
| off you go.
|
| The huge advantage, apart from no queues, is that you don't
| have to remove stuff from your cart, making it way, way
| quicker.
|
| You can have a "random" check where everything will be scanned
| again by a real cashier.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| > is that you don't have to remove stuff from your cart,
| making it way, way quicker.
|
| I don't understand the mechanics. You need to put the
| physical item back and also remove it from the barcode
| reader, no?
| rpadovani wrote:
| No, that's the fancy part. You pick up a barcode reader at
| the entrance, something like [0]. When you pick something
| from the shelf, you scan it, and put in the cart. You don't
| remove the stuff from the cart until your car, so you can
| already fill up your bags in the cart!
|
| [0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Ba
| rcode-...
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Ah! You mean "remove" as in "after you bought and paid
| for it" and not "if you decide not to buy it" (as you
| would remove an article from a online shopping cart).
| Gotcha.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Only problem is that this relies on a loyalty card, at least
| for the ones I've seen, which makes it a non-starter for many
| people.
| ddejohn wrote:
| Why is a loyalty card a non-starter?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Privacy concerns?
| ddejohn wrote:
| Not being snarky, I'm genuinely asking. What are the
| privacy concerns here? That your name is associated with
| the store you shop at? Wouldn't one also get that from
| their debit or credit card that most people use to pay
| for things nowadays?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| At least in Europe, you need a suitable legal basis for
| processing under the GDPR, at least in theory (we do know
| however that GDPR enforcement is significantly lacking so
| this might be just a false sense of security as there are
| no consequences to breaching the regulation).
|
| Signing up for a loyalty card would give them that legal
| basis, where as merely using your payment card wouldn't,
| so they theoretically shouldn't be stalking you. In
| practice, not giving them your name/contact details also
| means there's no chance of spam arriving from them.
| There's was never a moment I said "I wish my supermarket
| would contact me out of the blue for any reason" and I'd
| like to keep it that way.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| There is exactly one reason why I wish a supermarket
| would contact me out of the blue: a recall, since they
| would in theory know what I purchased if I used the card,
| so no need to first hopefully hear about the recall, then
| try to figure out if it applies to me.
|
| That said, I've never heard about that as a benefit from
| a market in the US, just discounts on food items (or put
| differently, upcharges if you don't use a card).
|
| Not that we have GDPR-level protections here either.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Personally I was too stingy for the initial 25EUR fee,
| and then forgot about it, because in the meantime self-
| service proliferated and lines were much shorter there.
|
| EDIT: also my experience with telecom companies in Italy
| made me distrustful of any sort of subscription program.
| joshvm wrote:
| This is perhaps an Italian problem? In the UK loyalty
| cards are generally free, even if you were required to
| have one for the scan-as-you-shop systems. This used to
| be only Waitrose before the other supermarkets
| (Sainsburys, Tesco, etc) adopted them.
|
| Same goes for Switzerland. Both Migros and Coop offer
| this, and both require a loyalty card (and also a payment
| method, obviously), but those are free too.
| [deleted]
| rsynnott wrote:
| Hmm, while I've never bothered to use it (I'm happy with
| the self-checkouts) I'm 99% sure that the one at my local
| big Tesco doesn't require you to have the loyalty card; you
| just bring the scanner gadget to a special automatic
| checkout.
| ElFitz wrote:
| Amazon Go was even more incredible than that.
|
| Walking out without even having to deal with those pesky self-
| service cash register, their sometimes finicky scales, and some
| supermarkets' more than annoying rules, feels like a weird
| magic trick.
|
| You would just walk in, pick stuff up, and walk out. That's it.
|
| Each time I couldn't help but feel like I was shoplifting.
|
| And then the invoice came in by email, always accurate.
|
| Truly bewildering.
| ddejohn wrote:
| Wait, you don't even have to scan your items? Are they using
| cameras to detect the items you grab?
| joezydeco wrote:
| Correct. It's pretty amazing when it works. I used to try
| and speedrun the Go store and see how fast it worked. My
| fastest visit was 9 seconds, receipt was 100% accurate.
| ddejohn wrote:
| Interesting. Another commenter made the point that retail
| stores already have massive surveillance systems in
| place, and that it was a good thing that they're being
| used non-punitively for once.
|
| Me, I'm not so sure. I don't think I'd like being
| reminded that my every movement is being watched. At
| least when I go to a store, I completely forget about
| security because I'm, you know, not there to steal
| something. It doesn't even cross my mind.
|
| Or maybe it's a good thing to remind people that they're
| constantly under surveillance? I dunno.
| joezydeco wrote:
| The Go stores completely hide the technology. All the
| cameras and sensors are tucked away behind shelves or
| painted black and mounted on the blacked-out ceiling.
|
| I mean, with the Go stores there really is no concept of
| shoplifting since you need a payment method to walk in.
| Shoplifting would involve fooling the sensors and I
| suppose Amazon takes that as a cost of training their
| systems. There are many videos of people trying things to
| fool the system but I don't know how successful that is.
|
| On a philosophical level I don't see any difference
| between this and, say, an employee following you with a
| clipboard and marking down everything you do. You're a
| customer in a private business and they can make any rule
| they want. Short of anonymous bartering for goods and
| services in an outdoor setting you really don't have much
| of a say. If Amazon hides the surveillance is it a trap,
| or just a way of making you feel more comfortable making
| impulse purchases?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > At least when I go to a store, I completely forget
| about security because I'm, you know, not there to steal
| something. It doesn't even cross my mind.
|
| Have you never been to a store that occasionally plays an
| announcement saying "Security to section 3" or some such
| nonsense? Those are the best, because that is 100% BS.
| It's theater, designed to make the people who do shoplift
| think they're going to be caught. And a lot cheaper than
| actual security when you're operating a grocery store on
| tight margins.
| none_to_remain wrote:
| When I tried it I joked to my dad they offered San
| Francisco-style shopping: just grab the stuff and walk out
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| > You would just walk in, pick stuff up, and walk out. That's
| it.
|
| In my friend's case it was walk in, spend a half hour working
| out the app issues, pick stuff up, and walk out, get charged
| for something you didn't take, go to Amazon to ask for a
| refund.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > What are other experiences?
|
| For a number of years now our local grocery/everything store
| has operated a cashierless option. When you enter, you grab a
| handheld scanner, and scan as you go. It's pretty cool.
|
| But it seems like nobody really uses it. And the two locations
| closest to me seem to have dropped it altogether. People are
| apparently more comfortable with just using old school self-
| checkout. Those have continued to proliferate, and account for
| way more than half the available checkout options.
| flutas wrote:
| > old school self-checkout
|
| Man, the old ones were better than the new ones my local
| Kroger has.
|
| The new ones are like they took an old checkout stand and
| just put a self checkout kiosk in it, so you place your items
| on a belt...that moves them 5 feet away after you scan them.
|
| So the flow is scan everything, checkout, then bag everything
| while people stare at you figuring out how to avoid doing
| what you're doing (and are angry at you for "wasting their
| time"), only for them to do the exact same thing.
| 1bent wrote:
| I've always found the concept of these puzzling; I find
| interacting with the folks in stores, even if it's merely
| exchanging a smile and a friendly word with the cashier, to be a
| joy in the day to day chores; from the first I heard of these, I
| thought it tragic that some would want to go there. Horn&Hardart
| left a lasting memory, but I haven't felt it was nostalgia.
| toofy wrote:
| yeah, this push to remove human interaction is really strange
| to me.
|
| i wonder often what minimizing humans interacting with each
| other will cause on a grand macro scale/timeline.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I enjoy interacting too.
|
| On the other hand, I _detest_ waiting in line for 5 minutes to
| pay, as happens frequently in e.g. CVS. Or 10 minutes at the
| supermarket.
|
| It's not worth 5-10 minutes of my time for small talk with a
| cashier, especially when half the time the cashier isn't even
| in a social mood. (I'm sure I wouldn't be either half the time
| if it were my job.)
| zamadatix wrote:
| I hope a similar style store opens in my area. I stop by a CVS
| nearby decently often but the self checkout counters are a pain.
| I wonder if it could be made into an optional system though where
| if you don't identify on entry then it assumes you want a
| traditional shopping experience. Otherwise existing chains are
| going to find it hard to switch to this type of model if they
| wanted to.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Good. Good good good. 100% good. This idea deserves to die
| perhaps more than any other. I wish them nothing but failure in
| this endeavor.
| nprateem wrote:
| I had to go to one to return a package. I couldn't get past the
| turnstiles because I don't use the app and don't know my password
| because I use a password manager. This meant I couldn't hand my
| parcel in at the counter.
|
| The woman on the turnstile wouldn't let me in even when I
| explained the situation. So she went off and got a scanner to
| take my package. She didn't offer a receipt, and when I asked for
| one said it wasn't possible to give me one. I checked my email,
| and nothing there either. So I had no evidence I'd actually
| returned my item and she just said something like "It's in the
| system and never makes a mistake" or some similar rubbish.
|
| While I was in there I saw several people walk just inside, faff
| around on their phones for 5 minutes then either give up or
| eventually get past the turnstiles. There's literally no benefit
| for customers unless you're shopping at busy times.
|
| So all in all an unmitigated disaster.
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| Did you have the QR code they email you for dropoff returns? No
| app needed (besides email).
| jonny_eh wrote:
| So did you get your refund? If so, sounds like it wasn't a
| disaster.
| permo-w wrote:
| if they didn't, they'd undoubtedly have mentioned it
|
| I have no love for amazon, but besides the lack of receipt,
| this seems like an issue they created for themselves
| nprateem wrote:
| Well since the return process took the best part of 15
| minutes for this state-of-the-art store, and I would have had
| no recourse if the refund didn't go through (since I had no
| proof I'd returned it), I won't be rushing back in a hurry.
| So in that respect it was a failure.
| gizmo385 wrote:
| 15 minutes to return something honestly seems... fine? Like
| I've gone to brick and mortar stores to return things and
| had it take upwards of an hour for the overworked customer
| service folks to make it through the line of folks
| cronix wrote:
| I always return/drop off at UPS. In and out in 5 minutes
| generally. But I guess UPS has been in the business of the
| extremely complicated "scan preprinted return label with hand
| held laser" game longer than Amazon.
| baumy wrote:
| [flagged]
| polygamous_bat wrote:
| > Seems like a very weird way of blaming a well defined
| system for your unwillingness to meet its prerequisites. It
| would take approximately a few minutes to discover that you
| need the app to get into the store and get that sorted. You
| are capable of this, just apparently too lazy or unwilling
| for some unclear reason.
|
| Reread what you wrote, but this time try to think of a UI/UX
| issue that this comment _does not_ cover. Indeed, if we can
| start blaming the user for every UX trouble, this world would
| be a very different place, and not a place I would rather
| live in.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > Seems like a very weird way of blaming a well defined
| system for your unwillingness to meet its prerequisites.
|
| > just apparently too lazy or unwilling for some unclear
| reason.
|
| > Just bizarre.
|
| This is a very emotionally manipulative and accusatory
| comment that certainly does not meet HN's guidelines, and
| doesn't actually address any of the problems that the GP
| stated.
| baumy wrote:
| No, I don't agree. I directly address the problems by
| arguing that they aren't actually problems. I feel I
| plainly stated the reality of the situation as it was
| described, and was not manipulative and accusatory in any
| way. I do not appreciate your characterization however.
|
| I will likely not respond further as this will quickly
| become non constructive.
| flangola7 wrote:
| > No, I don't agree. I directly address the problems by
| arguing that they aren't actually problems. I feel I
| plainly stated the reality of the situation as it was
| described, and was not manipulative and accusatory in any
| way. I do not appreciate your characterization however.
|
| You can't argue that something isn't a problem when it is
| self-evident. Trying to do so is manipulative, regardless
| of whether or not you appreciate that fact.
|
| This sounds like something I would expect to hear from an
| MBA, not an engineer.
| di456 wrote:
| Is the app required for a return or can you use your credit
| card to enter? I've always just used my credit card to enter
| but have never done a return at one.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Or, just log in to your account in the browser and the return
| page has a QR code for the store employe to scan. I did a
| return a few weeks ago and I was in and out in 30 seconds, even
| though I don't use the app.
| Nanana909 wrote:
| > I don't use the app
|
| So then why attempt to go to a store that's entirely based on
| using the app?
|
| The store concept is based around your account - and you didn't
| know your account details. The app can help avoid this, but you
| also refused to use the app.
|
| How is this any different than someone who refuses to use their
| password to sign in to Amazon.com and complains about not being
| able to submit a return?
|
| Or going to a store and not having your credit card but being
| annoyed that you can't use your credit card?
| aendruk wrote:
| It's listed as a drop-off location when you're returning a
| traditional web order. There's no warning about it being an
| innavigable dystopia in the return flow. I had the same
| experience.
| Nanana909 wrote:
| Is that an issue with the store concept, or an issue with
| not making it clear to users that it's a non standard drop
| off location? I don't see the lack of a warning reflecting
| on the actual store itself very strongly.
|
| Also- why even bother with Amazon and trying to return
| packages etc if you have no easy way of getting your
| password? If this is too much of a hassle just use in
| person stores..
|
| I've had drop off at mail shops locations be unexpectedly
| closed which is objectively worse than having a bad but
| possible return experience.....and never once claimed that
| "mail shops are an unmitigated failure"
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It's definitely an Amazon failure, as Amazon controls all
| sides of this return.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| It can be a failure on Amazons part without it being a
| failure of the cashierless store concept.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Well it's definitely a failure of the Amazon cashier less
| store concept if they railroad you into doing your
| returns there but then it doesn't even work.
| aflag wrote:
| Sounds more like a failure on the returns drop off
| location listing. It seems that improving the filters and
| visibility of what you'll need to have to drop off
| returns in each location is a far less drastic solution
| than dropping some stores because otherwise it messes the
| website lists.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Amazon gives you very few choices on how to return items,
| oftentimes just 1 (and it'll be something bad like UPS
| pickup or Kohl's dropoff). They would need to change this
| too. The problem really is with the overall experience.
| aflag wrote:
| That's the experience with the Amazon website though, not
| the cashierless store. That's the point.
|
| I personally don't like the website too much. Full of
| fakes, bad quality items everywhere. I only use it for
| cheap stuff I wouldn't return anyway. I do get that.
| Amazon go and whole foods are good though. Amazon go is
| very convenient and whole foods often have brands which I
| like and I don't easily find elsewhere. I also enjoy
| their fruit.
| wokwokwok wrote:
| I mean, I agree with you; it's incomprehensible to me
| someone would go there without an app or at least their
| device logged into the Amazon website.
|
| ...but, let's be charitable and say some has lost their
| phone or whatever; it's not totally unreasonable to
| expect some kind of special process for it.
|
| ...turns out, there was a special process for it. Without
| a receipt. Oh well...
|
| /shrug
|
| Some people are just weird about it. Live and let live I
| say.
|
| Lesson learnt I hope: next time, I hope they go somewhere
| else and let other people get on with their perfectly
| mundane shopping.
|
| Just wait until they have facial recognition stores, and
| you'll find people complaining they couldn't get in while
| wearing high powered IR leds all over their heads. You
| just can't win in some of these arguments.
| asdfiwerio wrote:
| This is literally the modern version of the old person
| who refuses to use anything but cash and won't use the
| internet or get an email account. People who elect to be
| luddites even of small degree will always have an
| suboptimal experience to people who adopt change.
| olyjohn wrote:
| What's the problem with cash? Counting change make you
| feel like a dummy?
| hanniabu wrote:
| "if you don't give up all your privacy to mega corp then
| you deserve to be blacklisted by society"
| tsuujin wrote:
| Thank you, I was feeling like I was very far outside of
| this thread until your comment.
| jrockway wrote:
| It's somewhat unclear to me what you have to lose here.
| You're going to their retail store that is littered with
| cameras as a feature they heavily advertise. You're
| returning a package with your name and address on it. If
| typing your password into the turnstile is the last
| straw, that just seems weird to me.
|
| But even that wasn't required. OP did their return
| successfully.
| bentley wrote:
| The loss of privacy comes not from actions taken at the
| Amazon store, but from having the app installed on the
| phone 24/7, including when you're _not_ at the Amazon
| store.
|
| A somewhat similar example would be using Facebook purely
| through its Tor onion address, while simultaneously
| blocking facebook.com on your home network. The point is
| not to keep Meta from having _any_ information about you,
| but to limit Meta to information it can acquire from your
| direct interactions, as opposed to the piles of unrelated
| browsing history it normally acquires through IP address
| correlation and Like buttons.
| crazygringo wrote:
| OK, I'll bite: what could possibly be the issue with
| keeping an app installed?
|
| If you quit it it's not running, and if you don't give it
| location permissions it's not tracking your location.
|
| Is there something I'm missing?
| bentley wrote:
| The situation has gotten better over time as the OS
| manufacturers have locked down permissions and made
| background operations more visible. But many privacy
| leaks have been only recently fixed or remain unfixed--
| for instance, it was only in 2021 that Android removed
| the ability for apps to collect the full list of
| installed apps. And there have been some real stinkers in
| the past, like when Facebook used its app to modify
| people's contacts lists to make @facebook.com email
| addresses the primary. Companies that make money from
| aggregating data will always be on the cutting edge of
| these techniques compared to ordinary people. The app
| that's not installed leaks no data at all, and I don't
| blame anyone for avoiding apps that aren't absolutely
| necessary.
| rnk wrote:
| The whole point of the go stores was to do retail in a
| different way, where you had to conform to their way or
| it wouldn't work. Yes, it was limiting for people that
| didn't have a phone with them or account info. Do all of
| these people befuddled by the phone/app requirement for
| go stores struggle when they go to pick up something at
| an amazon locker? It's basically the same thing, you
| can't "talk to someone" to get your locker opened that is
| on the back wall of the drugstore.
| bentley wrote:
| You can access an Amazon locker with a barcode printed
| from the Amazon website, or even from your confirmation
| email. The app is not required.
| [deleted]
| nfinished wrote:
| [flagged]
| everdrive wrote:
| It's different because there's a long-standing precedent that
| you don't need to install a smartphone app to use a store.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Sure, but Amazon Go is, as the comment you replied to
| states, a store _which literally is built to require an app
| to use_. This argument is thrown out the window when you
| shop at a store which explicitly and from its inception has
| required this.
|
| As the commenter stated,
|
| > So then why attempt to go to a store that's entirely
| based on using the app?
| crote wrote:
| I think a big problem is that it _shouldn 't_ require an
| app to use.
|
| There are plenty of cashierless stores which work just
| like any other store. They aren't exactly doing anything
| groundbreaking when it comes to that. They could also
| just put a regular payment terminal at the exit - the
| whole magic camera stuff would work just fine with it.
|
| The end result is that they created an artificially
| cumbersome store concept, which does not provide a real
| benefit to the user. No wonder it isn't popular.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > I think a big problem is that it shouldn't require an
| app to use.
|
| That's not the issue that's being discussed though. It's
| a fair criticism, but that's still irrelevant to the
| topic of Amazon Go stores requiring them and that you
| should therefore expect to need one if you want to enter
| a store.
|
| > No wonder it isn't popular.
|
| I wouldn't deduce popularity from the closure of the
| stores. In Seattle at least, the stores had already been
| "temporarily" closed for a while and are in a fairly
| high-crime area of the city. [0] At the same time,
| they're actively building larger suburban stores [1]
| which indicates a pivot, but that the format itself is
| still popular.
|
| They've also added it to other venues like Climate Pledge
| Arena and Lumen Field in Seattle in the form of "Just
| Walk Out" [2]. You still need an Amazon One account to
| use it.
|
| [0]: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-
| shutters-some-c...
|
| [1]: https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/amp/topics/a
| mazon-go...
|
| [2]: https://justwalkout.com/
| olyjohn wrote:
| So let's say I don't shop at Amazon Go because I just
| never cared and had no idea what it was. But I am a
| frequent Amazon.com shopper. I return an Item and it
| tells me a list of places I can take it. I see Amazon Go
| listed just like the UPS store. Or just like any other
| drop location. So I go to the Amazon Go store just
| assuming it's like every other store in the entire world.
| Only to find it's closed to me because I didn't bring the
| app with me. Does that make any sense to people? Why is
| this so hard to figure out why someone might be confused
| when they get there to just drop off a goddamn box?
|
| Why don't the people in the store have some flexibility
| to let you in? God forbid someone besides a computer has
| to make a decision.
| aflag wrote:
| Because if they do they'll probably get in trouble. There
| are cameras everywhere being monitored by computers and
| the incident will definitely be flagged somehow. If you
| steal something, then it's even worse. Why would they
| risk that? I think that's a minor issue with their drop
| off listings, which I suspect they will eventually fix.
| nprateem wrote:
| Because it wasn't clear I needed to use an app (and
| therefore would require access to my password which I
| didn't have on my phone) since I was just trying to
| return a product.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Amazon lists lockers in buildings with controlled access
| as drop off points as well. It's up to you to confirm you
| have access to the locker.
|
| If you need an app to enter that store and you need to
| enter the store to return an item, then it's pretty clear
| you need an app to return an item at that store.
| philwelch wrote:
| > Amazon lists lockers in buildings with controlled
| access as drop off points as well. It's up to you to
| confirm you have access to the locker.
|
| I don't think this makes the point you think it makes.
|
| > If you need an app to enter that store and you need to
| enter the store to return an item, then it's pretty clear
| you need an app to return an item at that store.
|
| "Excuse me, you need to install the app on your phone to
| enter the store", the store manager said to the paramedic
| responding to a call of an unconscious senior citizen on
| the floor of the Amazon Go store.
| nprateem wrote:
| They didn't say I needed it.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| It's as if you didn't read my comment at all.
|
| > If you need an app to enter that store and you need to
| enter the store to return an item, then it's pretty clear
| you need an app to return an item at that store.
| wzdd wrote:
| You don't need an app to enter the store. You need an app
| to shop at the store. Presumably many classes of person
| enter the store for various non-shopping reasons without
| needing the app. It's not beyond the bounds of reason to
| imagine that for the non-shopping purpose of returning an
| unrelated item you may not need the shopping app to enter
| the store -- or, indeed, to imagine that for the product
| return flow the shoppers' entrance may not factor into
| the equation at all.
|
| (I don't have a horse in this race, I just don't think
| you can usually apply the transitive property to the real
| world.)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It's a "member's only" club. This is how they restrict
| access and dodged the NYC requirement to accept cash
| payment.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| There's a longstanding precedent that you don't need a
| membership to shop at stores either, but Costco is still
| highly successful.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| At Kroger and Albertsons stores, you might be paying a lot
| more if you do not use the coupons that are only available
| in the app.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| The coupons, at least for Kroger, are loadable from the
| website.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| He was trying to return a package, not shop at the store. You
| can return Amazon packages at WholeFoods, Kohl's and the UPS
| Store using the Amazon website on your phone -- app not
| needed. I do it all the time because I refuse to use their
| app.
| Nanana909 wrote:
| > He was trying to return a package, not shop at the store.
|
| So then it sounds like he's not in very a strong position
| to declare the stores as an unmitigated failure...
| adrianmonk wrote:
| After re-reading, I think their point may have been to
| describe that one experience as a total failure, not the
| cashierless store concept in general.
|
| But it definitely can be read either way, so that's
| confusing.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| And yet the app _is_ needed at these stores. Perhaps he was
| confused and thought he was at a Kohl's, a store that
| doesn't need the app.
| kube-system wrote:
| I have returned items at all three and I always show the
| return instructions from my email, because it is easier
| to navigate than the app.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Thanks for confirming you need to login into Amazon in some
| form to do this
| purple_ferret wrote:
| you don't necessarily. you just need a barcode photo
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Never been that way for me. If I need to return
| something, they email me a QR code. The cashier at the
| UPS store scans that and takes my item, gives me a
| receipt, and I leave. I don't log into Amazon to get it.
| kube-system wrote:
| You need to login to Amazon to purchase things from
| Amazon.
| dylan604 wrote:
| To just do a drop off requires all of that? That is quite
| simply dumb to the nth degree. I get not having the app would
| make a shopping experience difficult, but that's not what the
| op was attempting to do. So your whataboutism is just tone
| deaf
| amelius wrote:
| The endgame in capitalism is something that is remarkably close
| to a bureaucratic all-controlling government.
| annexrichmond wrote:
| Only if monopolies are allowed to flourish, because, that's
| what the government basically is - a monopoly on all services
| for which there's no private counterparts.
| permo-w wrote:
| does that not seem at all contrived to you?
|
| government is an organisation of humans within a
| geographical region that work for the benefit of all the
| other humans within that region. it's as simple as that.
| it's the exception not the rule for there to be no private
| competition; unless you live in Cuba, in which case you're
| describing communism, not government
| pharrington wrote:
| Just to clarify, communism is a specific type of
| government. (but yeah i assume you're saying its not
| government _in general_ )
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Monopolies are a fact of Capitalism. One of the roles of
| government is to provide a counter balance to that.
| marsven_422 wrote:
| [dead]
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| You could always go for a US federalism type deal (but made
| more extreme), where you try and make the Federal
| government as minimal as possible and cities/towns as in in
| control as possible. Then there would be competition
| between cities for tax payers, with the ability to move
| limiting monopoly.
|
| But that would probably be a negative for the same reason
| that bigger companies inevitably swallow smaller companies
| without government intervention: in the modern day
| economies of scale are everything. 10 companies that make
| 10,000 of something will generally lose to 1 company that
| makes 100,000. Monopolies will inevitably flourish without
| a strong government controlling them. (And moreover, in a
| globally connected world, if you kill all your monopolies
| it's very possible another state that allowed their's to
| flourish will have companies that can outcompete yours)
|
| I'm not exactly going anywhere with this, I don't have a
| great answer to what the best option is. You can try and
| force there to be 2-3 companies in every sphere...but
| that's barely competition. You can try and regulate the
| massive companies...but almost inevitably large cash-rich
| employers end up with sway over the government. You can try
| for lots of local competition and shut out foreign
| companies...and lose out on the many benefits of free
| trade. You can try and cut a balance between all of the
| concerns, but it seems that whenever government tries for
| nuance it ends up creating a very expensive bureaucracy.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Like capitalists don't aspire to be monopolists. You'll do
| so too if you become successful.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Incorporation is just governments franchising. Before you
| have a massive central administration, you use "tax farmers"
| to collect revenue. Before you have the technical ability for
| a total centralization of surveillance and control, you have
| corporations.
| permo-w wrote:
| can we infer from this that you believe there's some kind
| of central government conspiracy that never changes and is
| always pushing ahead with the exact same very specific
| plan?
| motohagiography wrote:
| Somehow comments like these are left to stand, so here's a
| counterpoint.
|
| Amazon has emerged as an oligarch that will be broken up like
| the Bell system, Standard Oil, rail monopolies, and others
| before it - provided it and other oligarchs haven't fully
| compromised the government who hosts it. If Amazon, and the
| other FAANGs operating predatory surveiilance bureaucracies
| continue to exist in their current form in 4-5 years, we will
| know for sure the US is irrepairably compromised and once
| again, a generation will need to reckon with whether their
| self determination and survival is worth accepting sacrifices
| for.
|
| Late stage capitalism is indeed dystopian, but if we call it
| early stage socialism somehow we're conspiracy theorists. The
| failure mode of the principled civilization created by the
| founders of the US reverts to the eurasian continential
| cultures and systems its citizens escaped. Those were pretty
| brutal, so much so that their own colonists revolted against
| them and achieved independence, and that's why american
| values are important to teach.
|
| Every human endeavour fails without maintenance and upkeep.
| Being on the side of the forces of failure isn't the right
| side of history, it's forfeiting your humanity to the
| currents of inevitability.
|
| If we're going to let tedious, low-effort tropes about
| "capitalism" stand, consider this one rebutted.
| permo-w wrote:
| >if we call [late stage capitalism] early stage socialism
| somehow we're conspiracy theorists
|
| sounds good to me. over time the world's wealth accumulates
| with the already wealthy. this makes sense, it's much
| easier to make money if you already have money. under the
| current system, inequality inexorably, unsustainably grows
|
| last time we were here it took a pandemic, a massive
| depression and two world wars for serious change to occur.
| and even then it only lasted 30 years or so, until the
| Thatchers and Reagans rolled it all back. and here we are
| now. late stage capitalism once again. what will be the
| final domino before change this time? nuclear war? some
| kind of AI disaster? hyperinflation? Covid clearly wasn't
| enough.
|
| it seems like kind of the people that would typically be
| concerning themselves with this kind of societal correction
| have been successfully distracted by bullshit culture wars
| jdlyga wrote:
| It's just the normal Amazon app, not anything special. And not
| to judge, but I think a password manager is really beneficial.
| You can even self-host it if you're concerned about security.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The turnstiles are unfortunate. They send the wrong
| psychological messages -- complexity, exclusion, a barrier to
| entry. I can't imagine that they stop any actual thieves,
| considering how brazen shoplifters are these days.
|
| And they really aren't necessary. The Amazon app has location
| services permission; it knows when I'm in the store. That's
| apparently enough to track me along with my purchases, and to
| flag anyone who tries to enter the store without the app. So
| what's the point of the turnstiles, exactly?
| throwaway426079 wrote:
| I've been in the Aldi version of this. By scanning an app qr
| code at the barrier I am associating my appearance with that
| account at that time. I can also bring someone into the store
| with me on my account (by the slightly clunky process of
| passing my phone back over the barrier to them).
| wiseleo wrote:
| To keep people who don't have a means to pay at that store by
| having the app installed and configured with their account
| away from the sales floor.
|
| It's one thing to stop a shoplifter at a normal store.
| Turnstiles reinforce the notion that this facility actively
| enforces access control.
|
| This is similar to Passport Control line at the airport. If I
| have Mobile passport (MPC) app installed, I use a dedicated
| and usually empty lane. The same is true if I have my Global
| Entry card. It takes a couple of minutes to setup MPC while
| walking, but most people choose to wait in the main line.
| jerzyt wrote:
| I don't have the stats, but seems to me that majority of
| purchases at convenience stores is alcohol. In CA, you cannot buy
| alcohol at self-service POS. That spells doom for Amazon Go.
| epberry wrote:
| I think these were some of the first, smaller stores from Amazon
| Go and probably very expensive to operate. It makes sense the the
| larger stores with newer hardware would be better financially.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| It likely came down to the location, the technology, or the
| price. Was there shrinkage?
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