431–440 of 572 posts
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LOL, any found efficiency doesnt go to the consumer. The evidence is the widening wealth gap over the last 40 years. Its trickle up economics.
does competition not naturally drive competitors to reduce margins?
In particular, it's useful to have new, upstart companies that are 'hungry' for market share, and aren't excessively tied down to old ways of doing things.
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"'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
The range of stars is very deliberately NOT zero indexed, you cannot rate a product below 1.
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Predatory pricing: A big gorilla comes in and under prices the entire market. They can do that because they already have tons of money. They do this long enough to break the market and drive the competition out of business. Once the competitors are gone they jack up the prices to unprecedented levels because there's no more alternatives available and bleed the market for all the money. Regular pricing: Charge a fair…
This presupposes some athletic new competitor can’t enter the market and take the margin off the fat incumbent. It’s why we have capital markets: If capturing a profitable opportunity requires spending some money, someone who wants to profit will send that money your way.
So a simple law could be that prices can only be raised to the point where they were at before the competition was squashed.
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> Amazon duped his product and sold it at something crazy, like half price Pricing below an appropriate measure of cost is generally considered predatory pricing. It is very difficult to enforce this, but that doesn't change the fact that it could be illegal and a violation of antitrust laws.
Amazon could also have the resources/know-how/volume to manufacture a comparable product that could be sold for half the cost
I honestly think in some ways, going to a store is about being around other people, the same as going to a cafe, not necessarily talking, but just being in the presence of others seems to be what many people crave. I largely think it's the appeal of shopping malls.
I’m in an interesting place. Here in Seattle I am two blocks from one of the largest Amazon Fresh stores. It was built on the former location of a local grocer. The construction was almost complete before Covid hit, but Amazon shuttered the store during that time. As a result there was no groceries in my neighborhood from 2018-2023. Now it seems Amazon is going to leave us a grocery desert yet again. They were piloti…
Not to be rude but there’s 4 Amazon Fresh locations in the greater Seattle area and each of them is next to multiple other large/small grocery options. For instance, the one in north Seattle (Shoreline) is within eyesight of a Safeway, a Sprouts, two international markets and a chef wholesaler. The other three locations are similarly crowded with options. What food desert are you referring to?
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…
Do people really have problems with self-checkout? I use it all the time in box stores like Kroger, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. It seems to work just fine for me and doesn't add more than a minute or two vs just walking out of the store.
The issue with the first generation was that they were too strict with bag placement, weight sensors, etc. They were impossible to use without having to call a very grumpy shop attendant to unlock them. Sometimes multiple times. They were grumpy because all this was technically user error but when a largish percentage of users run into the same issues over and over again, it gets really annoying to deal with.
They fixed most of the glaring UX issues with the newer generation. No weight sensors. No prompts to put the item in the bag it is already in, etc. The new ones basically only need people to unlock things like alcohol purchases, but are otherwise fine. The first generation was over engineered and had way too many failure modes. They still have them in some super markets but they are getting replaced with better ones.
Anyway, it's getting harder and harder to hire staff for supermarkets. These are low wage jobs and most of these people can get better paying jobs. Self checkout creates some opportunities for shop lifting of course. But that is offset by the wage savings. They compensate with security, cameras, etc.
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When did naming things have to reflect reality? ie it's "Burger King" and not "Bearable Burger"
My fiancee used to work at a place called "Decent Pizza". Their motto "Not the best but not the worst."