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“Just walk out” technology by Amazon

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Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#621

Post by danShumway »

filoleg wrote: post #598
danShumway wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice it's also labeled as displaying ads. And this is Amazon's debut offering. It's not going to get better from here as they get more adoption. I do not want this app on my phone. Everything I know about about the mobile ecosystem tells me that if an app/card/integration is required for an unrelated service, it's going to go downhill over time. Everything I know about Amazon means that they are definitely going…

They require a special credit card? I connected my usual credit card from my bank to the account half a year ago and have been using it successfully with Apple Wallet just fine.

I'm just going off of their FAQ[0]. I'll trust you as someone who actually uses the service.

Regardless, even linking my own cards, this is still kind of a crazy concept, isn't it? It's still strictly worse on nearly every single axis than a normal charge/gas station, where I can still just as easily pay with platforms like Apple/Google Wallet, but also with a spare twenty if I've left my phone at home or if I'm loaning my car to someone else.

It's very difficult to come up with a business model that says, "you must only pay us or interact with us in a special, tracker-friendly way" that isn't going to eventually become profitable by selling a lot of data or targeting you with ads. There are some exceptions to this rule, but they are very few and far between, and Amazon (and I suspect ChargePoint as well) are not among them.

In fact, you can already look at ChargePoint's privacy policy[1] and see that they're carving out terms that allow them to share your personal/location/purchase data with affiliates and partners, as well as to use your information to deliver tailored ads.

[0]: https://na.chargepoint.com/faqs#F8

[1]: https://na.chargepoint.com/privacy_policy

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#622

Post by CurrentB »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #612
CurrentB wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is that people are looking at self-driving as the next huge thing in automation that is "around the corner" for some definition of that time frame. But these stores exist today and make traditional cashiers obsolete in no uncertain terms, potentially across the entire brick and mortar retail industry, and the response is "eh, there's already self checkout lanes". It really feel to me like one of those mom…

SDCs exist today in limited scale as well. This announcement isn't more momentous than Waymo's recent one, it's just less baked into our thinking that retail jobs are on the chopping block like driving jobs.

But a much much more limited scale and years away from widespread usage. It's one ideal city hard coded into the technology vs tens of real stores using the real technology that could be installed in a 3rd party store today.

I could be wrong but the phrasing of the FAQ on on the information page seems to suggest 3rd party stores using this tech could start popping up in a few months.

To me the Waymo announcement would be as momentous if they said:

> How long will it take to install [self driving] technology in a [car]?

> The installation of the technology can take as little as a few weeks from the time we have access to your [car].

I suppose the page doesn't directly explain when they will start the installations. But from the phrasing, I wouldn't be surprised if we hear an announcement of some sort of launch plans with a partner store in the next Month. It seems relatively imminent. Of course, I think there were other Amazon Go related announcements that didn't pan so who knows.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#623

Post by sombremesa »

awb wrote: post #379
mherdeg wrote: post #234

This is just an observation that doesn't contribute meaningfully to discussion, but ... Twenty years ago this web site would 100% have looked like an April Fool's joke. Don't know what to make of that. Maybe it's that although retail feels almost exactly the same as it always has, under the hood lots of parts have really been moving, and I just haven't noticed? The parallel observation is that when Gmail was announce…

And why is this a standalone site and not inside the Amazon.com portfolio? EDIT: JustWalkout.com was registered anonymously at GoDaddy 7 years ago: https://www.whois.com/whois/justwalkout.com Amazon.com has public DNS contact info: https://www.whois.com/whois/amazon.com There's no TM or R marks around the term "Just Walk Out" on the page and no Favicon. Are we sure this is real?

It's possible someone at Amazon is just gauging interest as they do with their test press releases and one pagers. They may or may not move forward based on how much interest they get (i.e. serious emails)

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#624

Post by o-__-o »

spiorf wrote: post #491
larzang wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you just bought a toilet seat, surely you want five more toilet seats, you toilet seat enthusiast you.

I bought a new phone in a store, then bought a cover and a screen protecton on amazon. It sent me a notification: "We think you might be interested in a new phone". It's pretty obvious that people don't go around shopping for screen protectors and then buy phones to match.

Just realized all the info I’m giving Amazon by using the app. Time to change up habits for 2020

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#625

Post by owenmarshall »

mkolodny wrote: post #610
derefr wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprising to me that Whole Foods still doesn't have this tech integrated. You'd think that'd be the "beta" step after the Amazon Store's "alpha" step.

Maybe they don't want to draw attention to how many people are going to lose their jobs because of this yet. Cashier is the #2 job in the US (by number of people employed) [0]. If they released this at Whole Foods, I'd guess they'd fire all the cashiers there. That would make this rollout a lot less exciting for a lot of people. I hope Amazon comes up with an awesome way to help the cashiers this technology replaces.…

> I hope Amazon comes up with an awesome way to help the cashiers this technology replaces.

They can be retrained to work in fulfillment centers. Amazon will provide the piss bottles.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#626

Post by ashleyn »

mherdeg wrote: post #234

This is just an observation that doesn't contribute meaningfully to discussion, but ... Twenty years ago this web site would 100% have looked like an April Fool's joke. Don't know what to make of that. Maybe it's that although retail feels almost exactly the same as it always has, under the hood lots of parts have really been moving, and I just haven't noticed? The parallel observation is that when Gmail was announce…

Not sure if I would've viewed it as a prank. Maybe some ambitious plan involving physical RFID tags, that was doomed to fail.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#627

Post by o-__-o »

thefreeman wrote: post #574
TheGoddessInari wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They stopped free returns on Prime a long time ago. Now only a few select items offer it. This was about the same time they stopped shipping things in cardboard boxes and went with bubble packs, and most recently, paper wrap with no padding whatsoever.

what are you talking about. i buy things from amazon weekly and i have never once received something in paper wrap with no padding and have never paid for a return.

Ordered an alarm keypad it came in a box with zero padding.. just sliding around. A lot of my wife’s orders have been in blue bubble wrapped packaging

Other things however come just as you would expect (paper wrapping or bubble wrapped). So it all depends on the amazon worker doing his or her job..

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#628

Post by askafriend »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #157
askafriend wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Ha! They already have a decade of my purchase history from being a Prime customer and I shop using an Amazon Credit Card. They've got everything they need and I don't mind. Few people would be bothered by someth…

Ah, something that tracks you based on appearance, and can later do so outside stores, is very different from a keychain fob that you can register with 555-867-5309. I, for one, won’t ever go in an Amazon Go store. If other stores implement this tech without an opt-out, I will either start shopping in a ski mask or go without.

> Ah, something that tracks you based on appearance, and can later do so outside stores, is very different from a keychain fob that you can register with 555-867-5309.

That's a fair argument, but I think Amazon has enough about me that what you're suggesting is a minor concern relative to what they already have.

I'm much more concerned about my Amazon search history getting leaked as a .txt file than I am about Amazon using imagery of me to train their ML models.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#629

Post by andbberger »

vessenes wrote: post #13

Seeing a few negative comments here; I think these are short-sighted in the extreme. Labor is a major cost for retail; anything that massively reduces labor costs is going to be hugely game changing. Combined with amazon promises that it takes only a few weeks to integrate (seriously??) if this works at all, this is going to be a super fast growth group at Amazon. For reference think back to how many stories you’ve r…

> For reference think back to how many stories you’ve read about say managers short changing employees a few minutes at the end of work shifts.

Curious what you're talking about here. I've never heard of that, and in all the time sheets I've ever done 15 minutes is the smallest unit of time - not possible to bill 55 minutes, only 45 or 60.

Re: “Just walk out” technology by Amazon

#630

Post by dodobirdlord »

sgc wrote: post #139
grandmczeb wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience had been that it can vary quite a bit. Most of the time it’s pretty quick, but occasionally it can be over an hour.

Maybe that is a person verifying because the software flagged something as uncertain.

More likely, there's a work queue and sometimes it gets a bit backed up or falls a little behind while autoscaling resources kick in. Having fully dedicated capacity for something that's handled asynchronously, fluctuates with time, and can tolerate many minutes of processing delay would be a waste of money.
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