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Good or bad, this just tickles me because it reminds me of that ibm rfid commercial from the 90's (I think?) where it looks like a shoplifter is blatantly robbing a supermarket and the security guard stops them and says they forgot their receipt. They also had a bunch of other commercials that got super close like kids watching on demand streaming movies.
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if only most of the US labor force didn't rely on jobs in that sector...
If only manual laborers in 1850s England didn't rely on jobs that were replaced by machines (England went on to be far wealthier and provide far more opportunities to its people after the industrial revolution).
This view of history as immutable, with the ends always meeting the means is the sort of thinking that I believe is holding us back as a society. Researchers are still studying the impact that the industrial revolution had on not just the environment, but also the mental health of the descendants of the working class in Europe: https://hbr.org/2018/03/research-the-industrial-revolution-l....
We can and should do better.
My biggest problem with this is that from what I can tell, the only way to know how much you're going to be automatically charged (as well as what items the tech thinks you're purchasing), is to go to a kiosk in the store and get a receipt. Which seems to completely defeat the convenience of just walking out in the first place. I wouldn't feel comfortable just walking out without knowing how much I'm going to be char…
My main problem with this is how invasively creepy it all is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
if only most of the US labor force didn't rely on jobs in that sector...
If only manual laborers in 1850s England didn't rely on jobs that were replaced by machines (England went on to be far wealthier and provide far more opportunities to its people after the industrial revolution).
> In Just Walk Out-enabled stores, shoppers enter the store using a credit card. They don't need to download an app or create an Amazon account. But you may as well. By giving them a CC# you're allowing Amazon to spy on you anyway -- and that's not even mentioning the copious surveillance in such stores in the form of cameras and behavior detection. > If shoppers need a receipt, they can visit a kiosk in the store an…
Is it really spying if you are entering the store with full knowledge that your every move is being watched by a system in order to automatically track your selections? If anything it's full disclosure high level surveillance. I imagine big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart already have sophisticated surveillance systems that attach your card info to visual surveillance systems for Loss Prevention. I've heard of people…
True, I was being a touch aggressive in calling it "spying". However, if this sort of thing becomes so ubiquitous that its impossible to avoid, then it is 100% spying even if fully disclosed.
The difference between data collection being "spying" or not is one of voluntary, informed consent. If every store uses something like this, voluntary consent is no longer possible, and this would absolutely qualify as spying.
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Do these actually reduce labor costs though? I frequently use the Amazon Go store in Seattle right next to the Spheres, and there seem to be as many if not more employees there than at an ordinary convenience store: there's always one person by the liquor area to check IDs, one or two people walking around the store restocking the shelves and helping the clueless tourists download the app, and several people in the k…
This sounds like the kind of thing that works better at scale. Against a regular 7-11, probably not. But what stops the model in question from being applied to a warehouse-style store with still only four employees needed?
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> Not in most (all?) online shopping scenarios But this is real-life shopping, not online. Online shopping is 100% optional. Real-life shopping is not. > Is it just because this one is Amazon and it's fun to hate on them? No, my criticisms and concerns about this would be no different regardless of what company was doing it.
>But this is real-life shopping, not online. Online shopping is 100% optional. Real-life shopping is not. What? Is someone holding a gun to your head and forcing you to go shopping? I don't understand this statement. "Real-life shopping" is just as optional as online shopping is. Hell, "real-life shopping" is more optional in this regard because you can always pay with cash and escape the aforementioned privacy conce…
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> Not in most (all?) online shopping scenarios But this is real-life shopping, not online. Online shopping is 100% optional. Real-life shopping is not. > Is it just because this one is Amazon and it's fun to hate on them? No, my criticisms and concerns about this would be no different regardless of what company was doing it.
>But this is real-life shopping, not online. Online shopping is 100% optional. Real-life shopping is not. What? Is someone holding a gun to your head and forcing you to go shopping? I don't understand this statement. "Real-life shopping" is just as optional as online shopping is. Hell, "real-life shopping" is more optional in this regard because you can always pay with cash and escape the aforementioned privacy conce…
Really? And how do you get your food if you don't go shopping? Most people can't run a self-sufficient farm.
My biggest problem with this is that from what I can tell, the only way to know how much you're going to be automatically charged (as well as what items the tech thinks you're purchasing), is to go to a kiosk in the store and get a receipt. Which seems to completely defeat the convenience of just walking out in the first place. I wouldn't feel comfortable just walking out without knowing how much I'm going to be char…
My biggest problem with this is that from what I can tell, the only way to know how much you're going to be automatically charged (as well as what items the tech thinks you're purchasing), is to go to a kiosk in the store and get a receipt. Which seems to completely defeat the convenience of just walking out in the first place. I wouldn't feel comfortable just walking out without knowing how much I'm going to be char…
Another potential alternative for the anxious (and I definitely include myself) is an app showing up-to-the-second billing state on the smartphone screen. At a glance, usability issues seem hard but doable.