Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#411

Post by _delirium » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:16 AM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #253

Bluecobra wrote: post #76

Doesn’t surprise me. I frequently shop at Amazon Fresh in store and it’s a mediocre experience. It’s a poorly run store with no visible manager making sure things are in order. You constantly have to work around employees fulfilling online orders and they aren’t helpful. I always find expired groceries/produce on the shelf so I have to spend a lot of extra time inspecting each item. The only reason I put up with thei…

Interestingly, we only went to our local Amazon Fresh store a handful of times but it was always a perfectly fine experience. It seemed reasonably clean, well-stocked, and well-organized. Other than those new self-checkout shopping carts (which also actually worked well, even weighing produce), it was fairly indistinguishable from other grocery stores in our area. Amazon Go, on the other hand, always seemed like a de…

> those new self-checkout shopping carts

I'm going to miss those. Two nice things about them compared to a normal self-checkout: 1) you see things ring up as you shop instead of at the end, which is nice in case of errors or unexpected prices, 2) you can shop directly into a reusable bag or backpack instead of repacking everything at the end.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#412

Post by specialist » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:35 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #407

krferriter wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Biden admin went slightly harder against anti-competitive actions and anti-consumer actions by companies and all the billionaires freaked out and poured money into Republican campaigns in 2024 in order to roll all that back.

What was rolled back? There was no major change in action whatsoever, only rhetoric, which is meaningless. As for funding, Trump raised substantially less in 2024 than 2020 while Harris raised more money than any campaign ever has, by a wide margin. [1] Dark money also overwhelmingly flowed to the DNC. [2] And a large chunk of all of Trump's funding came after the previous administration tried to imprison him, which…

Enforcement.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#413

Post by zhivota » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:42 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #238

randycupertino wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they artificially made their prices super low for the last couple years and intentionally operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores. There were instances of their prices being lower than Walmart or other budget stores. The avocados were $0.25 each and carrots were half price of ones in Safeway, even ground beef was weirdly cheap. One time as a compa…

Walmart isn't a budget grocery store, though. Its prices are higher than actual grocery stores (like Safeway.) Also, everyone is WAY cheaper than Instacart.

This is the opposite of my experience. Safeway is usually the most expensive, more than the Kroger/Albertsons chains.

The only place that competed with Walmart on price for me was WinCo.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#414

Post by dlcarrier » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:42 AM UTC

lelandfe wrote: post #315

Chris2048 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did he have a patent?

I just looked it up - yes, and far in advance of the timeframe This is (or was) a very small business. An office and a warehouse, basically.

Patents last up to 20 years, assuming all maintenance fees are paid, so having a patent far in advance of an event may mean it's no longer valid.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#415

Post by triceratops » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #407

krferriter wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Biden admin went slightly harder against anti-competitive actions and anti-consumer actions by companies and all the billionaires freaked out and poured money into Republican campaigns in 2024 in order to roll all that back.

What was rolled back? There was no major change in action whatsoever, only rhetoric, which is meaningless. As for funding, Trump raised substantially less in 2024 than 2020 while Harris raised more money than any campaign ever has, by a wide margin. [1] Dark money also overwhelmingly flowed to the DNC. [2] And a large chunk of all of Trump's funding came after the previous administration tried to imprison him, which…

> As for funding, Trump raised substantially less in 2024 than 2020 while Harris raised more money than any campaign ever has, by a wide margin.

Does that include the $44b spent on the Twitter acquisition?

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#416

Post by dalyons » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:53 AM UTC

direwolf20 wrote: post #329

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is far better for me than the old taxi system.

Maybe the one where you flagged down a car on the street, but you could always call to book a taxi and those companies worked exactly like Uber — over the phone, because it was the pre–app era.

nah. They never came, or took hours. Taxis were awful services and deserved to die. (australia)

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#417

Post by worik » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:04 AM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #376

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon currently sells fake fuses that have probably already killed people. Amazon cares just slightly more about breaking the law then they about killing people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU

That's because criminal prosecution and product tort liability are not meaningful deterrents. Patent litigation is a different thing entirely. The burden of proof is lower, and the payouts are higher. To put things in perspective, Apple, Amazon, etc., have lost patent lawsuits worth hundreds of millions over trivial aspects of their devices that are just tiny parts out of thousands compromising the phone/tablet/whate…

> criminal prosecution and product tort liability are not meaningful deterrents.

> Patent litigation is a different thing entirely

Wow! Infringing my idea is "worse" than infringing my body...

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#418

Post by bgro » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:09 AM UTC

cmiles8 wrote: post #166

lelandfe wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> operated at a loss as a business tactic to force out competition and kill off local grocery stores Wouldn't surprise me. I know a guy who invented a device for truckers that became ubiquitous in truck stops across the US. This would've been like 2014. He refused to sell on Amazon, so Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price, until he agreed to list (at which point they dropped their…

Such tactics sound… illegal

[flagged]

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#419

Post by free_bip » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:11 AM UTC

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #295

simulator5g wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven’t you heard? Laws don’t apply to companies

[flagged]

You are on a website called HackerNews, where people are encouraged to comment on articles or "posts". You are seeing this because you are looking at the comment section of one such post.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#420

Post by dionian » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:21 AM UTC

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 didnt use their system, but the experience wasnt that great, it felt like a target grocery store in terms of product quality and selection. its a grocery store, but the regular grocery store is better.