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Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
351–360 of 865 posts
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, I think this is precisely the point.
As a loyal Whole Foods shopper I am EXTREMELY excited by this development. The worst part about grocery shopping anywhere is waiting in line. There are a ton of jobs at Whole Foods that have nothing to do with running the cash register, and as long as Amazon keeps those jobs intact I am all for the automation revolution. I have never worked as a cashier, but I can't imagine it's a very fun job. Automating out those j…
>> I have never worked as a cashier, but I can't imagine it's a very fun job. Automating out those jobs seems like a win-win, as long as the former cashiers can find a job doing something else.
Stacking the shelves isn't anymore fun that working the checkout. As someone who has done both I'd say checkout is the preferred role as it's much less physical (stacking shelves gets tiring after 8 hours) and you get chat to customers.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe they mean the inefficiency in the producer -> distributor-> retailer chain? What value does the middle guy add?
Liquor is heavily regulated on a state by state basis. The distributor relationship is often required by law.
So Amazon will create a spin off a distributor company
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mainers checking in? I haven't used it yet, but I just went to their website. I picked the store that I pass on my way home from work. Next available pickup is tomorrow at noon. They gotta go same day if they want people to use it. That or it's popular at this particular store, who knows.
They're pretty common in Massachusetts as well. Agreed. Need to be able to place order at lunchtime and pick up on the way home.
Just wait for Market Basket to do it. Everyone will follow.
We got a Market Basket in Maine I think 2 years ago - in Biddeford. No joke, you'd think it were Six Flags with the traffic it gets on the weekends.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#355This is a Walmart counterattack. Walmart is on the verge of capturing large swathes of busy "middle-class buyer" pickup orders. Amazon saw it and responded quickly.
Busy middle class buyers don't go to whole foods except for definitions of middle that are inclusive enough to appease the diversity committee at UCB.
Middle class people definitely shop at Whole Foods. There aren't enough upper class people to sustain something as low margin as a grocery store.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's nice to see non-union employees treated well and paid well, not because of any negative feelings toward unions or unionization, but because I think it shows that you can be a successful capitalist without trying to suck every ounce of productivity and profit out of your lowest-paid employees.
In the 1880s Bismarck increased the modern welfare state (it was called State Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Socialism_(Germany) ). The idea was that, if the poor people can get some form of social welfare from the existing state, they're less likely to support a proper socialist/communist revolution. Sounds like that. People won't unionise when they don't think they need to.
Exactly the reason why there aren't any Software Developer Unions these days.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Good old investors, so short sighted, they only care about the next 3 months. Yeah, darn those investors. How dare people with pensions, 401k's, IRAs, and other investments expect some kind of return on their investment? It's disgraceful. /s EDIT: The sentiment against investors is rather ironic considering the amount of equity collectively held by HN readers.
The idea that I can't criticize pathological behaviors by investors because I myself invest in things makes about as much sense as saying I can't criticize bad US policies because I live in the US.
Love it or leave it! /s
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#358I'm confused. Amazon is known to work backward from an imagined future press release, and then do the actions necessary to make that press release. How does Amazon see the future in this case? -Amazon already has PrimeNow and Amazon Fresh, which offer a great grocery delivery service. For those who have tried these services, it's easy to see how addicting they are vs going to a physical store. -I can't see Amazon usi…
One thought. People still like food and food things and being social, and the "farmers market" feeling. Even in a future which makes online grocery great for mundane shopping, people still need stuff to do. Whole Foods already has bars, cafes, and restaurants. Maybe Whole Foods locations turn into places where people can hang out, try new things, and buy online grocery delivery (or pickup delivery as well)? Who shoul…
Whole Foods is an instacart equity owner. I would be curious how this is being handled given the new conflict.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#359Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…
Read Coase's book on the theory of the firm. The short answer is yes, firms are just like gosplan. We put up with them because they reduced transaction costs.
Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B
#360Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…
The major difference is that if Amazon stop running well then someone else will come along and replace them. Whereas government is a monopoly, so if it runs badly then it doesn't automatically get replaced. Now, democracy is supposed to fix this, by allowing you to vote for a different supplier of government every few years. But because of the voting system in some countries (like the US and the UK) it's actually rea…
It would be enormously, impossibly wasteful for anything to come around and replace Amazon. It'd be like replacing Google. You're basically talking market chaos and massive supply chain disruption, probably to the point of extensive loss of life: you'd be surprised how much depends on these giant, government-like systems.
Personally, I think the poster suggesting that Amazon may start lobbying for basically welfare, is onto something. What if they lobbied for a massive redistribution scheme where half the excess/arbitrageous profits made by the 0.001% are redistributed to the 99.999% in the form of Amazon store credit and only Amazon store credit?
Since that is either already, or will inevitably be, the single most efficient distribution network by which you could get goods and resources to the populace in a market system?