Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#471

Post by scoot » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 11:14 AM UTC

davidst wrote: post #449

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…

I left the following comment some months ago, duplicating it here: [Disclaimer: Former Amazon employee and not involved with Go since 2016.] I worked on the first iteration of Amazon Go in 2015/16 and can provide some context on the human oversight aspects. The system incorporated human review in two primary capacities: 1. Low-confidence event resolution: A subset of customer interactions resulted in low-confidence c…

Obligatory /disclaimer/disclosure/. (Don't worry, most HNrs get this wrong for some reason. I will be downvoted for pointing this out, but whatever. It's a meaningful difference to those that understand.)

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#472

Post by tyingq » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 11:44 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #400

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"

My fiancee used to work at a place called "Decent Pizza". Their motto "Not the best but not the worst."

My favorite in this space was the MadTV skits about a computer/video dating service called "Lowered Expectations".

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#473

Post by lmm » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 11:47 AM UTC

davkan wrote: post #458

lmm wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a good tax credit, incentivising something society wants to incentivise, then everyone it applies to should get it; that helps social cohesion. If you make billionaires ineligible for tax credits they'll oppose them (and why shouldn't they?)

I’m all for universal benefits and doing away with means testing but doing so without fixing our regressive tax system it truly is just a gift to the wealthy.

It's not. Fixing the tax system is a good idea that I'm all in favour of, but universalising benefits and eliminating means testing is a good idea even if we don't wait to do that first.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#474

Post by SilverBirch » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 12:38 PM UTC

Slartie wrote: post #456

londons_explore wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as you get to ~99% accuracy, you probably don't need to go further. If the customer is accidentally billed for an orange instead of a tangerine 1% of the time, the consumer probably won't notice or care, and as long as the errors aren't biased in favour of the shop, regulators and the taxman probably won't care either. With that in mind, I suspect Amazon Go wasn't profitable due to poor execution not an inher…

Actually, discount grocers operate on razor-thin margins of 2-4%. If your inaccuracy is geared to the benefit of your customer (because otherwise you'll be out of business due to the regulatory bodies) and thus removes just one percent of that, you suddenly lose a quarter to half of your earnings! And that goes ON TOP of the additional cost incurred with all that computer vision tech. In addition to that, you'll have…

And to add to that, it's not a neutral environment. If there's 1% of scenarios that are incorrect, people will figure out they haven't been billed for something, figure out why, and then tell their friends. Before you know it every teenager is walking into Amazon Fresh standing on one foot, taking a bag of Doritos, hopping over to the Coca Cola stand, putting the Doritos down, spinning 3 times, picking it up again and walking out of store, safe in the knowledge that the AI system has annotated the entire event as a seagull getting into the shop.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#475

Post by geoduck14 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 12:47 PM UTC

mjmas wrote: post #443

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"

Something interesting I found while looking up Hungry Jacks (the Burger King franchise here in Australia) is that the angry Whopper is a normal menu item here but it seems to be only a seasonal/special item for Burker King.

Please tell me what is in an Angry Whopper?

Also, time I was in Australia, I had a burger with a fried egg and a beat. It was SO good.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#476

Post by astura » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 12:55 PM UTC

geoduck14 wrote: post #475

mjmas wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something interesting I found while looking up Hungry Jacks (the Burger King franchise here in Australia) is that the angry Whopper is a normal menu item here but it seems to be only a seasonal/special item for Burker King.

Please tell me what is in an Angry Whopper? Also, time I was in Australia, I had a burger with a fried egg and a beat. It was SO good.

It's a spicy version of the whopper.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#477

Post by Blackstrat » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 12:55 PM UTC

As one who has spent substantially since Amazon's inception, Amazon in recent years has become an unreliable supplier in my area. Much of the product sold by Amazon is sourced from China and until recently Amazon did little to distinguish name-brand products from knockoffs. That's why companies like J&J weren't making product available on the Amazon site. Amazon Prime is laughable here, frequently taking a week or longer. The local Whole Foods is a mere shadow of its previous incarnation. Of course, most of the bookstore alternatives have been driven out of business. The B&N strategy is more appropriate to competing with Books-a-Million than the old Borders. Overall, Amazon seems more focused on its movie/TV business than it does what created it. And Bezos? Well, it's obvious that righting the ship at Amazon isn't nearly as important as being a jet setting celebrity with a new younger wife and playing with his space ahips. And BTW, I'm in a major city, not some rural town.

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#478

Post by VMG » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #439

AppleAtCha wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here in Germany, the newer generation self checkout terminals are fine. I use them all the time. No issues. The first generation ones were terrible. 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 tech…

the Kaufland ones where I live still have weight sensors which for me completely eliminates the appeal

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#479

Post by sylens » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

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…

Spot on assessment of an Amazon Fresh store. Their big gimmick is a cart where you can scan your groceries as you put them in it, then you just walk through a designated check out lane and it charges your card automatically for whats inside. I've tried it a few times and I can't say its preferrable for any type of shopping trip. Only picking up a few things? You're faster with a basket and self checkout. A big weekly food order for a family of four? All of your groceries won't fit in their special cart because it needs room for the scale and the scanners.

The prices are indeed pretty insane and the produce is always great, but the stores are ghost towns most of the time. The only people inside are those using it as a spot to drop off Amazon.com returns and those fulfilling pick-up orders

Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores

#480

Post by ryukoposting » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC

chilmers wrote: post #29

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…

Yeah, we had one near us, close to the metro exit, and it was genuinely great when you needed to grab something for dinner on the way home. Once you knew where things were, you could be in and out in 20 seconds. That said, it never seemed busy compared to other grocery shops in the area, so I think a lot of people were put off by it feeling "weird" to shop without checking-out.

IIRC the Fresh near my old job required you to have a Prime membership, otherwise it was just a normal grocery store. I only went in there a few times, but I don't have a Prime membership, so there wasn't much of a point.