Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

Post by schnable » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 2:55 AM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #364

madeofpalk wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped. Wow - I did not know this. This makes it all a whole lot less impressive and interesting that it was just people off shore watching you.

Sounds like fake-it-till-you-make-it stuff right? This is exactly how I would bootstrap a startup that wanted to do this. Kind of impressed with their scrappiness to be honest.

Post by janpieterz » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 2:57 AM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #386

ricardobeat wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-checkout is seamless in Europe. I don't see anything that would stop the US from having the same.

It is for me too in the US. I think it's either specific stores/chains or user error.

Post by lupire » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 3:02 AM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #376

geodel wrote: post #375

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> how come everything with an app is so much more expensive? After ton of investment investors are finally looking for returns now. And consumers have decided convenience reigns supreme. Right from the SAAS products to daily breakfast customers there is lot of premium on convenience.

> After ton of investment investors are finally looking for returns now. We need a quippy phrase for this, but unfortunately "Pump and Dump" is already taken for a kind of stock-market manipulation. Instead, I would like to coin/nominate "Tease and Squeeze". First consumers are teased by the idea that the disruptive new service has invented a magic new secret to low prices and great value... But after the company as…

Post by lupire » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 3:04 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #410

Johnny555 wrote: post #239

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Lots of services would be phenomenal when you can offload much of the cost to run them to cheap offshore labor. Remember how great Uber and Doordash were when much of the cost of operating was offset by underpaid workers and VC funds? Now that they don't have unlimited piles of money and cities/states are making them pay more fair wages, the cost-benefit of those services has diminished. I was ok paying $5 for $20 of…

This is a weird take. Cheap wages? Both of your examples paid decent wages, especially in the example of Uber. It was just an unprofitable business model subsidized by VC money or Amazon corporate profits. That sounds like a good thing?

Post by lupire » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 3:05 AM UTC

pcchristie wrote: post #420

Terr_ wrote: post #397

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> If you did some kind of shell game with 5 different people all passing around their items, then you don’t get charged correctly is it theft? IANAL but I'm confident the legal answer is "yes", the same as if someone was using sleight-of-hand with objects at a cashier-and-conveyor-belt checkout station. Whether charges are brought and how easily the case can be proved is another matter, but the intent is what makes i…

I thought one of the marketing lines was that Amazon was so confident/comfortable in their implementation was that they assumed all liability for mistakes (though as I type this I realise they may have worded it to encapsulate only honest mistakes rather than people trying deliberately to break the system).