Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#121

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

tmoertel wrote: post #107

ceejayoz wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Wegmans' home town, and the enshittification process has hit them hard in recent years.

What changes have you noticed?

My store used to have a big bread oven, desserts made in-house, fresh prepared food made in woks etc. right next to the buffet table, etc. All gone now; the coffee shop got replaced by robots, they tried to close the seafood counter (with enough negative feedback they reversed it), etc.

It's all made centrally now, for 3x the price and half the taste. All the kids went and got MBAs and the third generation family business curse hit hard as a result.

I've heard locals say "Bob Wegman loved people, Danny Wegman loves food, and Colleen Wegman loves money".

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#122

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #100

PaulHoule wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wegmans opened a store at the Brooklyn Navy Yard just to show people in NYC what a real supermarket looks like. I mean, you might be impressed with Whole Foods if all you know are those bodegas that have around NYC but if you've been to a real supermarket Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh and such are not impressive at all.

I'm in Wegmans' home town, and the enshittification process has hit them hard in recent years.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#123

Post by fencepost » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

The Fresh stores are kind of a weird shopping experience with a mix of normal, overpriced and bizarrely cheap at different times.

I've gotten into the habit of stopping in to wander the aisles and check prices because of it (e.g. I stocked up on a bunch of canned soup when most (but not all) Progresso soups were $0.44 a month or two back, and I picked up some microwavable rice+quinoa pouches for my wife at $0.35 each a couple weeks ago, but the inconsistency and overall not great prices mean it can't be my go-to grocery destination.

I'm sure the one by me will be closing since there's a significantly larger Whole Foods just a few miles away.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#124

Post by in_a_hole » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

cmiles8 wrote: post #7

Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed. Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras. If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost…

A.I. = Actually Indians

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#125

Post by nebula8804 » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #99

eithed wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did naming things have to reflect reality? ie it's "Burger King" and not "Bearable Burger"

It was a pretty good burger until 2013 when they changed the machine they used to cook the burgers. Now it's worse than McD's and that's saying something.

Wait that explains so much! Do you know more about the change?

I've been weirded out by the fact that their jr burger buns are now super shiny as if they are spraying something on them. I know this is processed food, but no burger bun should be able to reflect sunlight the way their burgers now do...

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#126

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #37

mjr00 wrote: post #18

> On April 4, 2024, it was revealed that Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology was supported by approximately 1,000 Indian workers who manually reviewed transactions. Despite claims of being fully automated through computer vision, a significant portion of transactions required this manual verification. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go ) Wonder how much of this is due to economics since computer vision tech ne…

Another case where AI = "actually Indians". It's funny how often this has happened.

Maybe. I'd really want to know what percent of items (not transactions) needed review. 1,000 people to oversee how much revenue?

Theoretically if it was 99% computer and 1% human, that's enough to mess up the economics but it's not a bait and switch like some companies have done.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#127

Post by freedomben » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

12_throw_away wrote: post #111

freedomben wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They only hire non-union jobs program people at the registers because Amazon believes that cashier is a sub-human role. The implication being that humans who aren't in a union are "sub-human" in your opinion? If so, that's pretty messed up man.

A giant, multinational, multi-trillion-dollar corporation that will only bargain with individual people living paycheck-to-paycheck? Huh, what a weird power imbalance! Surely it doesn't have anything to do with their documented history of treating their blue-collar workforce like utter garbage.

I think Amazon are largely shitheads to their low level workers (and still assholes even to mid-level workers), and I am in no way defending them. I'm in fact sickened by them. I will never work for Amazon.

But the implication above was that the non-union employee is the "sub-human" option. I find that attitude pretty gross too. Humans are human whether they are union members or not.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#128

Post by adolph » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

nayroclade wrote: post #20

I always found the "Amazon 4-Star" name funny. Presumably when it was first pitched internally it was called "Amazon 5-Star", then they realised that meant they basically couldn't sell anything, since nothing popular gets a full 5 stars. So they changed it to "4-Star", which just sounds awkward, and lacks the suggestion of top-quality that "5-Star" would. Instead, it's like the "Amazon Not-too-bad" store. I was amaze…

"'Amazon Not-too-bad' store" sounds pretty reasonable. Maybe a too-clever work around for the 5-Star problem would be to call it "100-Star," which would be 4 in binary notation. Or they could call it "5th-Star" since 4 stars is the fifth number of stars b/c the range of starts is zero indexed.

  Ordinal : Cardinal
  1 : 0
  2 : 1
  3 : 2
  4 : 3
  5 : 4
  6 : 5

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#129

Post by kube-system » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #83

kube-system wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I walk into a McDonalds I see people who will rather stand 5 minutes at the counter waiting for a human cashier than use one of the available kiosks. I'm sure some are paying cash but there are certainly people who are just not comfortable with technology. The Go stores were a great experience but they would certainly be uncomfortable for anyone other than early-adopter or tech-forward types of people. I w…

A lot of people have trouble using those and it's not just tech discomfort or whatever. You have to be able to hold your arms up in front of you, touching specific points in space. The UI is not good and does not provide good moment-to-moment feedback about whether you've pressed a button or which one. You have to be moderately-to-strongly literate, you have to wrap your head around the menu organization, know what y…

I think the systems are good in the context of "computer ordering systems", but not great in the context of "food accessibility". They're built with a lot of inherent presumptions that likely apply to most of the peer groups of the people designing it, but certainly do not in the field.

I am quite privileged and I know numerous people who might have trouble telling you the name of the meal they want even if presented with a hard copy of a menu.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#130

Post by themaninthedark » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #91

proee wrote: post #26

Has anyone used their go stores? I'm curious how the experience felt from a consumer standpoint. Do you feel welcomed or more like a thief? I remember WAY back in the day when Arby's implemented touch screen ordering (on CRTs!) and it was a very quirky process. An Arby's employee would sit behind the counter and stare at you while you spent 5 minutes poking a CRT display. Very slow and very impersonal. They discontin…

I'm probably not a typical case, but I felt like my privacy was massively invaded. The concept was cool, but I felt like every muscle twitch was being scrutinized and recorded forever. I was also in constant fear that the computer would charge me for things I didn't buy and getting it corrected would be a nightmare. I also felt like if there was a bug or malfunction in the system and it didn't charge me for something…

Walmart and Kroger near me now have one way metal cattle gates that you have to pass through when you enter. Makes me feel like cattle and that their assuming I am a thief. Trips to those locations have dropped.

The Home Depot cameras and screens that "BING BONG" loudly as you pass by to get you to notice them showing that they are recording you are also highly annoying.

I wish there was a greater variety of hardware stores near me...